Hearing someone call Zynga a copycat is old news. Whether or not Zynga "draws inspiration" or "flat-out rips off" from other popular titles has been a debate for years. For the first time, however, Zynga appears to have an opponent with the financial capital to challenge the social games giant in a court of law. That opponent goes by the name of EA, and they've officially sued Zynga and The Ville for copyright infringement.
Just yesterday Bingo Blitz developer Buffalo Studios claimed that Zynga's upcoming game Zynga Bingo was a copy of its social game. And this came not long after Tiny Tower developer Nimblebit made similar accusations. Now Zynga has finally responded and, expectedly, denied any wrongdoing.
Another week, another lawsuit. Yesterday, Spry Fox, the developers of the social game Triple Town, sued 6Waves for copy infringement, accusing the latter of copying their game with the release of Yeti Town on the iPhone. Last week, Nimblebit accused Zynga of copying their game Tiny Tower with the release of Dream Heights in the Canadian iTunes Store. Today Buffalo Studios just did the same about Bingo Blitz and Zynga Bingo. And in December, Zynga and Vostu settled a lawsuit whereby Zynga has sued Vostu for copying its game CityVille which Vostu counter-sued, claiming the pot-calling-the-kettle-black defense (that Zynga's game was a copy of other games).With so much outright copying and downright plagiarizing going in the world of games today, I would like to submit a Modest Proposal to solve the problem once and for all.
With the rampant plagiarism that goes on in game development, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. David Edery, CEO of Spry Fox, has just confirmed on his blog that his company has filed a copyright infringement suit against 6Waves LOLAPPS in regards to the latter's release of Yeti Town, a game that clearly borrowed everything that was original about Spry Fox's Triple Town, slapped on a fresh coat of paint, and made it to the App Store first.
The backlash against Zynga for its (pretty blatant) plagiarism of Tiny Tower may have been one of this week's big stories, but it certainly isn't the only recent case of game companies ripping each other off. Late last year, 6waves Lolapps was accused of doing the exact same thing, and now the company's finally defending itself.
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous boundaries.
Earlier today we brought exciting news from the Great White North - Zynga had released two brand new games on the Canadian App Store, and one of them seemed to be in the same vein as Tiny Tower. Since that time I've had a chance to go hands on with Dream Heights, and it turns out that it's less "the same vein" and more "blatant plagiarism."