EA: Zynga's Infringement on Sims Social is ''Unmistakable''

[exfileme]

EA says the infringement is so severe, it's hard to distinguish Maxis' The Sims Social and Zynga's The Ville with an untrained eye.

EA: Zynga's Infringement on Sims Social is ''Unmistakable'' : Read more

 

[dormantreign]

I hate everything about EA, but do agree with this lawsuit. This is an example of crossing the line.

 

[Inferno1217]

Just checked it out and yes it's way too close. I loath EA and they probably deserve this after all the crappy games they put out.

 

[mharry860]

Well duh, I've never seen anything so blatant. The first time I saw "The Ville", I said "Well there's the next lawsuit."

 

[CaedenV]

because Sim City Social is somehow not a direct copy of Cityville?

 

[chewy1963]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]because Sim City Social is somehow not a direct copy of Cityville?[/citation]

Fail on two fronts... first, this article is about Sims Social, NOT Sim City Social. Second, Sim City has been around since the early 90's at least.

 

[Pinhedd]

oh I wish I had a tiny virtual tissue for Zynga

 

[teslacoilftw]

I heard you can Buy a Tiny Virtual Tissue on The Ville Of course there is a cost to it

 

[s3anister]

[citation][nom]teslacoilftw[/nom]I heard you can Buy a Tiny Virtual Tissue on The Ville Of course there is a cost to it[/citation]
But can you buy a tiny virtual violin?

 

[A Bad Day]

Pick your poison!

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]because Sim City Social is somehow not a direct copy of Cityville?[/citation]

Cityville has a distinctive different micromanagement. It feels a lot more like managing a communist city than actually running a city.

Sim City Society was EA's attempt at building a new fan base. They not only failed to repeat the success of the original SimCity, but they also pissed off many of the existing fans that thought SCS was a true successor to SC4.

 

[rohitbaran]

I loathe EA for their microtransactions, but I loathe Zynga even more for being copycats. They have gotten away with it so far, I hope the company goes belly up this time.

 

[demonhorde665]

technically they can't nail zygna , unless zy actualy ifted code adn artistic work directly from the actual sims social game. and i mean litterally. it doesn't matter how similar the game is as long as zygna did all their own work on theirs it's jsut a matter it being a clone , whichare perfectly elgal clones do make genres. i remeber battle toads it was almost spot on exactly like the TNMT video games of that tim. and no one ripped them a new a0-0 in court over it. this is jsut EA being dicks

 

[Thunderfox]

Hard to choose who to root for since I hate both sides.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]chewy1963[/nom]Fail on two fronts... first, this article is about Sims Social, NOT Sim City Social. Second, Sim City has been around since the early 90's at least.[/citation]
Failure in reading comprehension.
It was a tongue-in-check response because SimCity Social and Cityville are also damn near identical, and yet this does not make waves. The point being that they are both dirt-bags who liberally copy game-play and layout ideas from eachother, it is hardly a one-way street. And there is nothing illegal about having a similar product unless they can prove that they copied code, or that there is some active deception of claiming that one product is the other.

 

[NuclearShadow]

As I don't have a Facebook account and thus unable to see and judge for myself perhaps adding screenshots of both and putting them side by side would do this article some good? It would let the readers be able to help make a judgement for themselves.

 

[Guest]

one dying ship sues another one...

 

[Cy-Kill]

[citation][nom]chewy1963[/nom]Fail on two fronts... first, this article is about Sims Social, NOT Sim City Social. Second, Sim City has been around since the early 90's at least.[/citation]

Fail on one front for you, SimCity came out in late '89!

 

[srap]

http://www.technet.hu/data/cikk/40/7/10/cikk_400710/2.jpg
The Sims Social (left) and The Ville (right)

 

[aoneone]

Will they get the chair?

 

[bigdragon]

You all realize this is just EA trying to assert absolute dominance over the human simulator genre, right? What Zynga has done is innovate. They've taken the old concept Maxis came up with and EA milked to death in order to try to improve it. It's clear to me that there's a difference in the games. The graphics on the Zynga version are cleaner, characters are more recognizable, the UI is better designed, and the social features are better executed. It looks like innovation to me. Zynga hasn't stolen any of the assets from The Sims Social. EA's complaint boils down to them claiming copyright on certain colors, isometric grids used to display houses, the concept of appliances, and other facts of human life -- ridiculous!

Of course The Ville and Sims Social will have similarities. As games in the same genre that's what is supposed to happen! There are supposed to be similarities. This is why it can be hard to distinguish Modern Warfare 3 from Battlefield 3, Need For Speed from Ridge Racer, or Medal of Honor from Red Orchestra. I'm not willing to allow EA to claim exclusive ownership over the human simulator genre with their The Sims franchise. I'm also not willing to jump all over Zynga because they've taken established ideas and made them better. Dream Heights did what Tiny Tower did but better, and they both stemmed from Sim Tower. I'm not going to punish someone for innovation. If Zynga can do it better then let them.

It's better for the industry as a whole to fight against EA's copyright claim. Let them compete with Zynga. Don't punish innovation and competition. EA wants to perform an NFL-style lockout against Zynga to keep them out of the human simulator genre -- EA's most profitable business acquisition.

 

[teh_chem]

As much as people in the gaming community speak out against EA so much, it's usually for how they (mis)treat their customer base--but I've heard some pretty awful work-environment stuff from Zynga employees--not a great place to work. If I were a coder there, I'd probably rip off a popular game given their work conditions too.

But in all seriousness, who are we kidding here?

 

[pscgod]

So not a huge fan of EA as of late, but Zynga is about feeding the growing stick and carrot gaming. Yes i know there are other big name games that do the same but at least they took the time to build a whole game not just "come back and check to see if my crops grew" gaming. The more people buy into the zynga like atmosphere the more other big name developers are going to incorporate those features into their games since "we like that" so much....

 

[PsiCoRe]

I hate Facebook games personally, they're ALL generic, dumbed down and share similar stick and carrot gaming styles because they're all rushing out to copy and outdo each other and churn this crap out to the market. Sim City Social's design queues are straight out of City/Farm or whatever ville you wish to name. Right down to the click 3 times to build. Play empires and allies then go play Sim City Social. You'll be shocked at the similarities. And lawsuits against Zynga for this? That obviously means they're both plagiarizing another well known title: http://digiex.net/attachments/downloads/download-center-2-0/games/990d1228398044-theme-hospital-full-version-download-multiplayer-patch-windows-vista-7-support-272538.jpeg

At some point people need to draw a line between plagiarism and inspiration and I don't think any facebook developer has a leg to stand on in this argument.

 

[PsiCoRe]

[citation][nom]teh_chem[/nom]As much as people in the gaming community speak out against EA so much, it's usually for how they (mis)treat their customer base--but I've heard some pretty awful work-environment stuff from Zynga employees--not a great place to work. If I were a coder there, I'd probably rip off a popular game given their work conditions too. But in all seriousness, who are we kidding here?[/citation]

Don't know much about Zynga but that sounds terrible. I think most publishers treat their developers like lesser people which is wrong and ironic since without them they would have nothing. Coders need to be treated, recognized and rewarded better. They need to have more control of the design process. Older games were far more rewarding despite the lack of technology because dev studios were smaller and developers had more say in the design direction. Consumers and fans should be fighting for better treatment of their staff as these are the real heroes in the industry. It will ultimately result in better products for consumers. In fact with digital distribution and kickstarter projects they don't need publishers anymore and if I were an EA or Zynga exec I'd be worried as they could find themselves out of work.