In early August Electronic Arts filed a lawsuit against social gaming giant Zynga for its new Facebook game The Ville.
"The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable," said Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager of Maxis (the EA subsidiary that produces all Sims games) said at the time.
Zynga finally responded to the claim Friday — by accusing EA of copying Activision's Little Computer People when it created The Sims to begin with. It also accuses EA of copying Zynga when it comes to social games.
"Zynga's YoVille, released in 2008, three years before The Sims Social, was the first commercially viable life simulation game on Facebook, " Zynga says in court papers filed Friday. "YoVille allowed players to: customize a virtual avatar by selecting its skin color, facial features, hair color, hair style, and clothing; decorate and arrange furniture within a virtual home; work a virtual job; and socialize with other players by visiting them and sending them virtual gifts. "
Zynga adds, "In other words, it was Activision—not EA—that first developed the ideas found in The Sims Social, and it was Zynga—not EA—that first brought the concept to Facebook."
In a CNN interview in 2000, Sim's creator Will Wright acknowledged playing Little Computer People, and receiving "valuable feedback" on the game from its creator Rich Gold.
Zynga claims that EA actualy copied it when it started making social games for Facebook, noting that EA's SimCity Social was launched a year and a half after Zynga's CityVille.
"A side-by-side comparison of Zynga's CityVille and EA's SimCity Social shows that EA draws heavily on elements found in Zynga's CityVille game. In fact, in promoting its game, EA explicitly played on Zynga's popular CityVille: "More City, Less Ville."
EA's lawsuit against Zynga regarding The Ville isn't the first time the company has been accused of copying games. The company often releases games that are exceptionally similar to other popular games on the market. FarmVille, for instance, was released after a similar game Farm Town took Facebook by storm.
The company acknowledged that tradition in Friday's court filing.
"Zynga did not achieve its success in the social gaming sphere by launching games that users don't want to play. It achieved its success by innovating in popular genres, a tradition it has continued with The Ville."
What do you think? Is EA or Zynga in the right? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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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