The games industry is full of derivatives. One moment it spawns unique ideas, the next it generates zillions of copycats.
Yet one company seems to perpetuate more unoriginal games than the rest: Zynga. It may dominate the social games space, but Zynga isn't necessarily known for inventing innovative game play or bringing new ideas to the table.
This isn't a new statement. Zynga's entire history has been rife with accusations of copying previous game ideas. SFWeekly interviewed several former Zynga staff members who anonymously said CEO Marc Pincus asked them to steal ideas from other companies and package them better.
Pincus has defended himself publicly, as well: "Zynga believes that innovation in the social game space is about more than basic gaming concepts, which often have multi-decade prior histories, but about how those gaming concepts are transformed into truly social, engaging, constantly updated gaming services that deliver enjoyment to millions of people at a time," he said in a statement to The San Francisco Business Times in 2009.
Pincus is correct that game clones have always been a problem, especially when a new idea gains popularity quickly or when companies rush to fill an occupied space (like when consoles were invented in the past, or how gaming is moving to social networks today).
That said, look through our gallery of examples below, and tell us: Has Zynga gone too far with its copies?
The genre of "match three" games is largely uninventive — plenty of games have tried to put various spins on the same puzzle concept. But Zynga's Ruby Blast (right) borrows very heavily from one gameplay mode in PopCap's popular game, Bejeweled.
In Bejewled's "Diamond Mine" mode, you need to match groups of three or more gems to dig deeper into a mine to explore for buried treasure. The further you dig successfully, more time is added to your clock. Ruby Blast, released just two weeks ago, employs this same gameplay technique: Players search for buried treasure to increase their experience, and race against the clock to dig deeper into a mine.
Parker Brothers hasn't been the best at protecting its property, or the quickest to jump into the digital world. Words with Friends, an obvious Scrabble clone originally made by Newtoy, became one of the most popular mobile games of the last few years. Zynga then purchased Newtoy, and has been releasing a slew of "With Friends" titles ever since.
Scramble With Friends is another board game classic-turned-mobile, simply because Boggle didn't enter the online space quickly enough. In both titles, players are asked to find words scrambled in a square of letters. While Boggle isn't squarely in the online space, it's safe to say it came up with the idea first.
Boggle photo courtesy Flickr, mharvey75.
The idea of a farming simulation can be traced back to older games, like Harvest Moon, but there is something distinctively similar between Farm Town (top) and FarmVille (bottom).
Farm Town was released earlier in 2009 than FarmVille by developer Slashkey. Both rely on building your farm and planting crops, though FarmVille has added many more features and decorative options to take advantage of the freemium game model. Even more confusing, a similar Chinese game named Happy Farm looks a lot like the other two titles.
FarmVille image courtesy Idlepines, Farm Town courtesy of Flickr, Gilded.
In 2008, as Facebook was gaining steam, its users were being sucked into acheivement-based games that pitted them against their friends in silly scenarios. One of the early, popular titles was Mob Wars, which was reported to be making several thousand dollars a day off users as it delved into a crime-ridden text adventure.
Mafia Wars was released by Zynga soon afterward. It featured a very similar interface and story elements, so much so that Mob Wars creator David Maestri sued Zynga. The lawsuit was settled for $7-9 million, a large chunk of change early in Zynga's career. Both games still exist, along with a Mafia Wars 2 title.
Last year, Tiny Tower took cellphones by storm, as people became addicted to building their own massive buildings and filling them with sims.
In January 2012, Zynga released its own tower-building sim named Dream Heights, and it immediately got the attention of Tiny Tower's creators, NimbleBit. Developer Ian Marsh released an open letter to Zynga, comparing the two side-by-side. The games share many elements, down to the tutorials and the level presentation.
Anyone who was a student from a certain era remembers the original Oregon Trail, which made learning fun as you traveled across the wild frontier of the 1800s trying to avoid dysentery. The game was still being published and updated through present day, with the last version releasing in 2011.
Zynga's released FrontierVille in 2010. Although it was originally like FarmVille, Zynga released an expansion in 2011 named Pioneer Trail, which asked players to cross several maps of wilderness to get to their new homesteads. It's hard to think this is anything other an uncreative nod to Oregon Trail.
In 2009, an EA subsidiary named Playfish released Restaurant City (left), in which players build restaurants into successful businesses and serve food to their friends.
A few months later, Zynga launched its own foray into the restaurant business with Cafe World. Many of the players remarked how similar the two games were, from the layout to the social features.
Image courtesy of See-ming Lee, Flickr.
Just last week, Zynga announced a new Facebook title: The Ville. Even in the earliest screenshots, it was hard not to ignore the glaring resemblances to one of the longest running, most popular simulation games ever: The Sims, especially EA's Sims Social for Facebook. In an area where Maxis and EA planted their flag firmly, wouldn't it be hard to blatantly copy them? Apparently not.
Sims Social image courtesy of Flickr, MeLY2o.
The genre of "match three" games is largely uninventive — plenty of games have tried to put various spins on the same puzzle concept. But Zynga's Ruby Blast (right) borrows very heavily from one gameplay mode in PopCap's popular game, Bejeweled.
In Bejewled's "Diamond Mine" mode, you need to match groups of three or more gems to dig deeper into a mine to explore for buried treasure. The further you dig successfully, more time is added to your clock. Ruby Blast, released just two weeks ago, employs this same gameplay technique: Players search for buried treasure to increase their experience, and race against the clock to dig deeper into a mine.
Parker Brothers hasn't been the best at protecting its property, or the quickest to jump into the digital world. Words with Friends, an obvious Scrabble clone originally made by Newtoy, became one of the most popular mobile games of the last few years. Zynga then purchased Newtoy, and has been releasing a slew of "With Friends" titles ever since.
Scramble With Friends is another board game classic-turned-mobile, simply because Boggle didn't enter the online space quickly enough. In both titles, players are asked to find words scrambled in a square of letters. While Boggle isn't squarely in the online space, it's safe to say it came up with the idea first.
Boggle photo courtesy Flickr, mharvey75.
The idea of a farming simulation can be traced back to older games, like Harvest Moon, but there is something distinctively similar between Farm Town (top) and FarmVille (bottom).
Farm Town was released earlier in 2009 than FarmVille by developer Slashkey. Both rely on building your farm and planting crops, though FarmVille has added many more features and decorative options to take advantage of the freemium game model. Even more confusing, a similar Chinese game named Happy Farm looks a lot like the other two titles.
FarmVille image courtesy Idlepines, Farm Town courtesy of Flickr, Gilded.
In 2008, as Facebook was gaining steam, its users were being sucked into acheivement-based games that pitted them against their friends in silly scenarios. One of the early, popular titles was Mob Wars, which was reported to be making several thousand dollars a day off users as it delved into a crime-ridden text adventure.
Mafia Wars was released by Zynga soon afterward. It featured a very similar interface and story elements, so much so that Mob Wars creator David Maestri sued Zynga. The lawsuit was settled for $7-9 million, a large chunk of change early in Zynga's career. Both games still exist, along with a Mafia Wars 2 title.
Last year, Tiny Tower took cellphones by storm, as people became addicted to building their own massive buildings and filling them with sims.
In January 2012, Zynga released its own tower-building sim named Dream Heights, and it immediately got the attention of Tiny Tower's creators, NimbleBit. Developer Ian Marsh released an open letter to Zynga, comparing the two side-by-side. The games share many elements, down to the tutorials and the level presentation.
Anyone who was a student from a certain era remembers the original Oregon Trail, which made learning fun as you traveled across the wild frontier of the 1800s trying to avoid dysentery. The game was still being published and updated through present day, with the last version releasing in 2011.
Zynga's released FrontierVille in 2010. Although it was originally like FarmVille, Zynga released an expansion in 2011 named Pioneer Trail, which asked players to cross several maps of wilderness to get to their new homesteads. It's hard to think this is anything other an uncreative nod to Oregon Trail.
In 2009, an EA subsidiary named Playfish released Restaurant City (left), in which players build restaurants into successful businesses and serve food to their friends.
A few months later, Zynga launched its own foray into the restaurant business with Cafe World. Many of the players remarked how similar the two games were, from the layout to the social features.
Just last week, Zynga announced a new Facebook title: The Ville. Even in the earliest screenshots, it was hard not to ignore the glaring resemblances to one of the longest running, most popular simulation games ever: The Sims, especially EA's Sims Social for Facebook. In an area where Maxis and EA planted their flag firmly, wouldn't it be hard to blatantly copy them? Apparently not.
Sims Social image courtesy of Flickr, MeLY2o.
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