Category: Drama

Boom! Saturday update out of nowhere. In gaming news however there’s a bit going on – EA has filed against Zynga alleging copyright infringement. I don’t believe there’s a popular game out there that Zynga hasn’t copied and put on Facebook or the iOS app store. EA knows that and didn’t really care much about Zynga’s business practices until they released “The Ville” which is a clear ripoff of Maxis’ The Sims Social. Since Maxis is an EA studio, Zynga’s stepping on some mighty heavy toes. Here’s the whole complaint. If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, at least look at the pictures. They make it pretty obvious that it’s a blatant ripoff even stealing artwork directly from The Sims Social. If there’s one company you don’t want to aggro – it’s EA.

Spry Fox, maker of popular Facebook game (and now iOS and Android app) Triple Town has filed lawsuit against 6Waves LOLAPPS for copyright infringement with their iOS game Yeti Town. That phrase “copyright infringement” is thrown around all too often today, but in the case of Spry Fox it was definitely necessary and an obvious abuse of trust.

6waves was in confidential (under NDA) negotiations with Spry Fox to publish Triple Town for iOS at the exact same time that they were actively copying the game. They gave 6waves private access to Triple Town when it was still in closed beta, months before the public was exposed to the game. Spry Fox believed those negotiations were ongoing, and continued to give private information to 6waves, until 6waves’ Executive Director of Business Development sent them a message via Facebook on the day Yeti Town was published in which he suddenly broke off negotiations and apologized for the nasty situation.

It’s not huge news, but it could be a deciding factor and case used for future lawsuits with the hundreds of companies copying and profiting from other people’s games such as Minecraft, Tiny Wings, and loads of others by companies like Zynga.