Uh Oh, Electronic Arts Files Lawsuit Against Zynga

@Ryuku_Ryosake: It's actually a standard way of saying "These guys are idiots, they're dumb as fuck and don't know shit about what they''re talking about" without looking like an asshole. Companies do it all the time, it's just trash talking. Like the dude could have never seen a law journal in his lifetime but would still say "Well Maxis doesn't know shit about dicks, they haven't even the basic understanding of copyright law because Zynga is in the right." It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong (they're wrong) because that is just the Zynga rep talking shit.

EA can talk a big game about wanting to fight for fairness, but the cynic in me thinks this is a way to implode Zynga so that EA can buy the company for cheap. Zynga is super shady and not long for this world anyway. It's just a matter of when and who is going to purchase them in order to buy their way into the social gaming space. Before I would have thought it to be Activision since it's kind of the evil empire, but this lawsuit from EA makes me think differently.

I doubt we'll actually see any kind of fight in court over this. The better fight to watch is going to be the bidding wars over Zynga.

@Tangeu said:

Sure, I dislike what Zynga is doing but is EA implying that they own the rights to categories of clothing? To skin tone selectors?

Replying because I didn't see this addressed in the first few pages before my browser couldn't take the gifs anymore...

I don't think it's the skin tone selector. It's the fact that if you happen to pull that picture into photoshop, and check the RGB values, the choice of skin tone selections themselves are bit-wise identical. That's not copying an idea, that's reverse engineering.

PS. I just noticed that masterfaculty said the same thing on page 6, so I'm not the first person to check this and discover the duplication of RGB values. Cheers!

PPS. ...and TooWalrus on page 9 as well. Glad some of us are paying attention.

@Milkman said:

You sir, made my day (:

Even if you don't like EA, they once in a while come out with great games. That cannot be said for Zynga. Go EA!

I hearby find both defendants guilty of the crime of producing facebook games!

I think it's abit of a stretch to point out something like choosing to have a sporty character in a life sim since that's just part of life, unless EA owns the copyright on life.
There are other similarities but i wouldn't want to be the judge on this one, other companies should be free to develop their own life sims if they want. Imagine a Capcom sims game, i'd love to see that.

@absolutmauser said:

@tourgen said:

Unless they copied and distributed actual EA-created assets or binaries there is no grounds for a suit. Just looking a lot like someone else's product is not copyright infringement.

That's not even close to what the law requires. EA has to show that it owns the copyright in the original work (i.e. The Sims Social), that Zynga copied it (which the court may infer by a showing of "striking similarity" between the two works) and misappropriated protectable parts of the work. That's why the complaint says things like "these categories are not typical" of these kinds of games and that they are not "required" as part of the idea of such a game and also why they are pointing out the similarities.

There are lots of rights that go along with a copyright and they can be infringed in different ways. This is the kind of copyright dispute you get when one creator allegedly steals from another one. You're thinking more along the lines of piracy, which is a different situation. Both are copyright infringement though.

AbM

Much as I wish I could agree with your assessment, unfortunately what Zynga appear to be guilty of is plagiarism, which isn't illegal. 'Substantial similarity' isn't a terribly strong offence, even under US law as it's a court-originated test rather than a legal requirement, and, as such, is entirely subjective.

I'd very much like to see EA slap Zynga silly, but it's doubtful they truly have much of a leg to stand on.

@Landmine said:

I would equate EA to Shao Khan. Yeah, they are kind of a dick, treat people like shit a lot, and are almost always driven by some selfish evil desire, but at least they're fighting with us not against us.

If only. Let's just say that, for once, EA's aims and our aims as gamers, for once in a blue moon, coincide. But let's disabuse ourselves of the idea that EA are in any way anti-heros or, at best, anti-villains. You're analogy with Shao Khan is apt, but keep in mind he's an irredeemable villain, just like EA has proven itself to be since the early '90s.

@Jayzilla: What does that have to do with this case? It's not a class action, and being barred from a class action doesn't prevent you from filing individual suits against a corporation.

"I don't fucking want innovation. You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."

- Zynga CEO Mark Pincus

@Tangeu: It's not that Zynga is using skin tone selectors, it's the fact that the skin tones are the exact same RGB values. Zynga has shamelessly ripped off a number of popular games and cannibalized them. The only reason nothing has been said before is because they typically market to a different audience. Now that EA has entered the social gaming scene over the past year or so, they will start taking note of the blatant plagiarism Zynga calls its business plan.

Hells yeah. I hate EA, but at least they're a company with great games under their belt, and who got to where they are now with THEIR OWN talent- whereas Zynga is absolutely worthless. Go EA! Take these suckers down for good!

@DanTheGamer32 said:

@avantegardener said:

Your next Gameloft, arguably far more plagiaristic.

good god I hope so!

I'm not sure, other than the Pokémon thing, have any of their games been blatant ripoffs of games, other than in cases where they are strictly following genre tropes set by mainly one game? Two cases of that would be Diablo and Counter-Strike, where Dungeon Hunter and Modern Combat are obvious clones, but in genres that consist almost 100% of that. Diablo and CS just were so influential that every other game in their particular genres are modeled very strictly after them (Dark Alliance, Sacred, Torchlight, Champions, Darkstone and to some extent Icewind Dale, Dungeon Siege, Divinity and Nox come to mind for the former - Tactical Ops, New World Order and the multiplayer modes for every single military shooter made since 1999 for the latter).

In many cases they are after all licensed by the actual publishers to make a simplified port of a popular console or PC game for them smart phones (Brothers In Arms for example).

@fisk0 said:

@DanTheGamer32 said:

@avantegardener said:

Your next Gameloft, arguably far more plagiaristic.

good god I hope so!

I'm not sure, other than the Pokémon thing, have any of their games been blatant ripoffs of games, other than in cases where they are strictly following genre tropes set by mainly one game? Two cases of that would be Diablo and Counter-Strike, where Dungeon Hunter and Modern Combat are obvious clones, but in genres that consist almost 100% of that. Diablo and CS just were so influential that every other game in their particular genres are modeled very strictly after them (Dark Alliance, Sacred, Torchlight, Champions, Darkstone and to some extent Icewind Dale, Dungeon Siege, Divinity and Nox come to mind for the former - Tactical Ops, New World Order and the multiplayer modes for every single military shooter made since 1999 for the latter).

In many cases they are after all licensed by the actual publishers to make a simplified port of a popular console or PC game for them smart phones (Brothers In Arms for example).

Asphalt = Pretty much Burnout

Backstab = mechanically almost exactly the same as Assassin's Creed

Let's Golf = Everybody's Golf

Order & Chaos = World of Warcraft

Gangstar = GTA.

Pretty much all these game straight up riff directly off their equivalent game, even down to the art styles (Let's Golf, Gangstar especially). Gameloft are creatively bankrupt.

@DanTheGamer32 said:

@fisk0 said:

@DanTheGamer32 said:

@avantegardener said:

Your next Gameloft, arguably far more plagiaristic.

good god I hope so!

I'm not sure, other than the Pokémon thing, have any of their games been blatant ripoffs of games, other than in cases where they are strictly following genre tropes set by mainly one game? Two cases of that would be Diablo and Counter-Strike, where Dungeon Hunter and Modern Combat are obvious clones, but in genres that consist almost 100% of that. Diablo and CS just were so influential that every other game in their particular genres are modeled very strictly after them (Dark Alliance, Sacred, Torchlight, Champions, Darkstone and to some extent Icewind Dale, Dungeon Siege, Divinity and Nox come to mind for the former - Tactical Ops, New World Order and the multiplayer modes for every single military shooter made since 1999 for the latter).

In many cases they are after all licensed by the actual publishers to make a simplified port of a popular console or PC game for them smart phones (Brothers In Arms for example).

Asphalt = Pretty much Burnout

Backstab = mechanically almost exactly the same as Assassin's Creed

Let's Golf = Everybody's Golf

Order & Chaos = World of Warcraft

Gangstar = GTA.

Pretty much all these game straight up riff directly off their equivalent game, even down to the art styles (Let's Golf, Gangstar especially). Gameloft are creatively bankrupt.

Let's Golf and Backstab I could agree with, the others are kinda in the same seat as Diablo and Counter-Strike I think, games that game so popular that they became the blueprints for the genre, where Gameloft's entries are just few among hundreds of identical games. Pretty much every MMO since 2004 looks and plays exactly like WOW, and O&C certainly does less to differentiate itself from WOW than a few others, as for GTA there was an entire wave throughout the early 2000's of games imitating GTA III and it's spinoffs, and Gangstar seems no different. As for Asphalt I can't really see what's specifically Burnout, kinda looks like a generic post-NFS3 driving game to me. I certainly wouldn't call them imaginative - quite the opposite, but at some point enough games have used the same source of inspiration that I'd think it would be wrong pointing out Gameloft specifically as creatively bankrupt, rather than the entire genres.

@Tangeu said:

Sure, I dislike what Zynga is doing but is EA implying that they own the rights to categories of clothing? To skin tone selectors?

You seem to be grasping at straws here. No that is not what they're doing. As can be clearly seen, the set up, and the categories used between each game are ridiculously similar to the point of b

latent theft on Zyngas behalf.

The five types of dress just so happen to be all the same? The types of personalities being the exact same? The menus in the third pictures even look similar, minus a few different placements.

It's obvious Zynga made a Sims clone. To try and undermine that with some trivial make believe implication like "is EA saying they own the rights to skin colors" is just being dumb. And whether your comment was a joke or not, it was an unfunny and lame one. Use your head, man.

@alibson said:

This is like Hitler fighting Stalin

Zynga Is Good and Very Smart, Millions Play Their Games Everyday On Facebook, Poker, Bubble Safari, THE VILLE, Farmville Mafia Wars and many more, EA Is Just Losing Alittle bit Of Noticable Users, and Money, Considering we "millions Can Access Any Of These Zynga Games On Facebook FREE of Charge And Play Them Free As Charge And EA Isnt Liking That, This Case Is Simply Over EA Getting Pissed Because Zynga Is Getting Up Their with popularity, And EA Saw The Ville And Is Making A Big Deal Out Of something Thats Really Not A Big Deal, If You Want To Get Technical Thatss What This Is REALLY Alll About EA Trying To Stop ZYNGA Because Thats all Everyone plays is a Zynga Game, Not A EA game......I really dont think its a matter of copyrighting, i think its a matter of just flat ass getting pissed, because someone else is doing alittle better than you at the moment. GO ZYNGA LOVE YOUR GAMES HOPING FOR THE BEST

EA IS DUMB, REALLY YOUR GOING TO SUE ZYNGA, BUT YALL DID THE EXACT SAME THING! YALL COPIED ZYNGAS CITYVILE AND MADE SOME SHIT LIKE CITY SOCIAL, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, AND ITS MORE IDENTICAL, THAN THE VILLE IS TO SIMS, EA COPYRIGHTED ZYNGA CITYVILLE, CAUSE I PLAYED THEM BOTH, AND THEY ARE WAYYYY TO ALIKE SO EA NEEDS TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND DROP THIS SHIT

@mempstor: Nice try Zynga spokes-person. But no one is buying your whole "I'm going to stick up for Zynga by pretending to be sound like a total idiot with a half-assed argument and CAPSLOCK EVERYTHING SO IM NOTICED BETTER!" routine.

The proof is in the pudding. Zynga are villains.

@Cessate: i like zynga So Go To Hell With EA

EA just pulled a Vader in Return. Now if only they can actually kill Zynga and in doing so, die themselves but in a tragically redeeming way.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Go get 'em EA.