Social games king Zynga has been accused of not-so-subetly borrowing from other games in the past, but no developer made its argument as succinctly as Tiny Tower developers NimbleBit has.

Nimblebit has passed around an image comparing Tiny Tower and an upcoming iPhone game from Zynga called Dream Heights, alleging that NimbleBit “wanted to thank all you guys [Zynga] for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year, Tiny Tower!”

Apple named Tiny Tower as its iPhone game of the year in December.

The image from NimbleBit has a humorous tone, but the three-man company isn’t shying away from accusing Zynga of taking a little more than its fair share of inspiration from Tiny Tower.

I’ve contacted NimbleBit and Zynga, but have yet to hear back from either company.

The move from Nimblebit has come under some scrutiny for Tiny Tower’s own inspiration from Sim Tower, which was released by Maxis back in 1994. Sim Tower has since been ported to iOS, as well, but under the name Yoot Tower, playing on the name of the game’s creator, Yoot Saito.

In an interesting twist, NimbleBit designer Ian Marsh pointed out that Zynga once tried to acquire NimbleBit.

Cloning and iteration is common problem in mobile and social games. Super Crate Box creator Vlambeer famously raised a stink over its Radical Fishing being cloned, and will be exploring the issue at the Game Developers Conference with a panel called “Clones: Advancing the Discussion.”

Social games king Zynga has been accused of not-so-subetly borrowing from other games in the past, but no developer made its argument as succinctly as Tiny Tower developers NimbleBit has.

Nimblebit has passed around an image comparing Tiny Tower and an upcoming iPhone game from Zynga called Dream Heights, alleging that NimbleBit “wanted to thank all you guys [Zynga] for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year, Tiny Tower!”

Apple named Tiny Tower as its iPhone game of the year in December.

The image from NimbleBit has a humorous tone, but the three-man company isn’t shying away from accusing Zynga of taking a little more than its fair share of inspiration from Tiny Tower.

I’ve contacted NimbleBit and Zynga, but have yet to hear back from either company.

The move from Nimblebit has come under some scrutiny for Tiny Tower’s own inspiration from Sim Tower, which was released by Maxis back in 1994. Sim Tower has since been ported to iOS, as well, but under the name Yoot Tower, playing on the name of the game’s creator, Yoot Saito.

In an interesting twist, NimbleBit designer Ian Marsh pointed out that Zynga once tried to acquire NimbleBit.

Cloning and iteration is common problem in mobile and social games. Super Crate Box creator Vlambeer famously raised a stink over its Radical Fishing being cloned, and will be exploring the issue at the Game Developers Conference with a panel called “Clones: Advancing the Discussion.”

Zynga makes it hard to not hate them.

Zynga makes it hard to not hate them.

The husband of a common relation of mine just started working for Zynga after a rather bad falling out from another independent game studio. Interesting to get his opinion on all this.

Wasn't there some former Zynga employees that said that they were pretty much told to look at other games that they could make cheap rip-offs of, some time ago?

And... This seems like it might be another one.

I saw this yesterday. SO funny. Really sucks that devs are copying each other so hard. Stupid Zynga.

You know, I WANT to like Zynga most of the time. But damn do they make it hard.

SimTower?

Pot meets kettle.

It's pretty disgusting how frequently this seems to happen, although most people are quick to excuse it because it's usually Gameloft aping games that aren't on mobile devices (which arbitrarily makes it okay).

When the best you can get out of a PR-obsessed behemoth like Capcom is a half-assed apology, what hope is there for any contrition from Zynga?

this is what makes video games good, people copying off each other.

copying, iterating and raising the bar.

sim tower was first as far as i can tell.

Zynga makes this real bad and obvious. When Tiny Wings never came to Android, I wasn't bothered by Dragon, Fly! because it was the same game, but it was free. Now there is an ad-free paid version of it and I think it is really crazy that people can get away with things like this in the mobile market.

Tiny Tower is awesome though, and it looks better than Zynga's dumb game.

Maybe the people in the video game industry who are upset about piracy and theft of intellectual property should take a look at this instead.

And Tiny Tower is a lot like Sim Tower.

I was a big fan of SimTower and was initially dismissive of Tiny Tower because it looked like a rip off but upon playing I saw that while there was certainly inspiration from Sim Tower, Tiny Tower is a much different game. Zynga's game on the other hand, is shameless.

Didn't capcom rip off a bunch of games when they started their mobile group?

This is just straight the hell up plagiarism.

I'm going to tweet Zynga about this. Will post their reply if it comes.

Seriously, spent a good few seconds trying to figure out what was wrong with this Alex article. Not so disappointed anymore :)

It's worth noting Zynga originally tried to buy Nimblebit before all this.

@Excast said:

Maybe the people in the video game industry who are upset about piracy and theft of intellectual property should take a look at this instead.

QFT.

Iteration, copying, and using ideas from other games are one thing and are defensible, if not a good thing. This is outright thievery. It's a palette swap of the game. This isn't just taking ideas or inspiration, it's entirely recreating the game in a non-copyright infringing way.

I don't know how anyone could be defending this as normal industry practice. There's a line and it's obviously crossed here.

I have no doubt that Zynga ripped off Nimblebit here. However, if I were to make a dumbed-down, rip-off of SimTower with micro transactions, without ever having looked at Tiny Tower, it would probably end up being very similar. So while I do hate Zynga, I can't really sympathize with Nimblebit. Perhaps if they actually came up with a new idea, instead of "adapting" someone else's game to iOS like Gameloft.

@Bucketdeth: Bravo!

I like how the first comparison that Nimblebit makes can also be easily compared to both of the images for Yoot Tower and Sim Tower that @patrickklepek links to.

I'm not sure why Zynga would have any defense here.

Zynga tried to buy Nimblebit. Nimblebit didn't go for it. Zynga just implemented Nimblebit's exact game themselves.

There's no iteration here. Just new art assets. It would be equivalent to someone pasting new models and textures on the same level/weapon/enemy design of a shooter. That's barely a mod, let alone a new product.

I don't think NimbleBit needs to worry though because it looks like Zynga's game has a terrible art style and NimbleBit's game is quirky and charming and is featured on the App Store by Apple.

This is what happens when a company is too small to have an actual PR department and decide that internet is a good replacement for that.

Isn't this the same argument about books, that all literature ever created and will be created owes its existence to, like, three books with actually original ideas? Video games have gotten to that same iterative point where we're all playing games with mechanics originally introduced years ago (doesn't make Zynga's rip-off any less blatant).

Looking forward to the discussion at GDC, though. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at that panel.

Zynga, Nimblebit and Gameloft can lick my peehole, they all suck.

@DonutFever said:

@Bucketdeth said:

Teehee.

Haha... moral high ground lost.

@JerK said:

@DonutFever said:

@Bucketdeth said:

Teehee.

Haha... moral high ground lost.

Wow thats good to know I still hate Zygna but your point is also true

Imitation leads to innovation. Nimblebit isn't going to lose any customers because consumers now have more variety in the marketplace for this sort of game. In any industry when the cost of development and imitation is so low strict copyright enforcement isn't necessary because the only reason to have state sanctioned monopolies over intellectual ideas(which a copyright is to begin with) is when it creates the best outcome for consumers. Until somebody explains to me how having an imitation of Tiny Tower is a bad thing for consumers I'll continue not giving a fuck about this. I have no patience for rent seekers, especially when they are imitating to begin with pretty heavily.

I'm sure no one, including the developers, will claim Tiny Tower is a completely original work. However, anyone comparing Tiny Tower to SimTower or Corporation Inc in the same manner one would compare Tiny Tower to the Zynga game is completely doing it wrong. The Zynga game is basically a copy+paste of Tiny Tower, whereas the SimTower etc merely share elements.

Please don't derail the important issue here by mudding the waters with misinformation.

@HotSauceMagik said:

SimTower?

Pot meets kettle.

Pot meet kettle. Kettle meet pot. Haha. I think SimTower is a dumb thing to mention in relation to Tiny Tower because it was so long ago, it was only vaguely inspired by it, and developed for a completely different platform.

Well if this did anything for Tiny Tower is give them a shit ton of free marketing. I just downloaded the title myself just to see what its about.

@drowsap said:

@JerK said:

@DonutFever said:

@Bucketdeth said:

Teehee.

Haha... moral high ground lost.

Wow thats good to know I still hate Zygna but your point is also true

This.

One thing is clear, both Zynga and Nimblebit copied stuff from Limbo of the Lost. Scumbags!.

I sure do love seeing the same picture five times on the same page of the comment section.

@stinky said:

this is what makes video games good, people copying off each other.

copying, iterating and raising the bar.

sim tower was first as far as i can tell.

Well, they have 1/3 of that down to a science.

@thabigred: Explain to me how copy-pasting a game will lead to innovation?

And to everyone mentioning Sim Tower. Using ideas from a game is totally different from blatantly making the exact same game as someone else.

Yeah, no, Sim Tower and Tiny Tower play very differently. Dream Heights is literally Tiny Tower with different graphics and sound. But hey, there's lots of scumbag developers on the smartphone app markets, this isn't a surprise at all.

@Damolition said:

@stinky said:

this is what makes video games good, people copying off each other.

copying, iterating and raising the bar.

sim tower was first as far as i can tell.

Well, they have 1/3 of that down to a science.

yeah, i've yet to see evidence of the other two.

This is why I've stayed clear of mobile gaming. That and the small screens and frustrating controls.

At the end of the day people will play what they feel is the better of these two games. It seems to me that if NimbleBit has made a solid game then they shouldn't need to worry about some hot turd Zynga drops out of its smelly ass taking their customers away. The best way to secure their position is to make the better product.

But seriously, microtransactions can go eat a shit as far as i'm concerned. I waste alot of money on dumb shit but I gotta draw the line somewhere.

i just got into tiny tower, FUCKIng addictive.

@stinky said:

this is what makes video games good, people copying off each other.

copying, iterating and raising the bar.

sim tower was first as far as i can tell.

yes, in fact this is quite natural and good. This is how ideas naturally develop and mature, leading to even better ideas.

Zynga is just so...easy to hate.

Even it seems like everyone is taking a swipe at them lately. Particularly enjoyed the "Zynga Abyss" article from Distance Quarterly posted in the Atlantic that was linked in Kotaku yesterday: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/the-zynga-abyss/251920/ (basically an article about the whole Skinner Box phenomenon).

@tourgen said:

@stinky said:

this is what makes video games good, people copying off each other.

copying, iterating and raising the bar.

sim tower was first as far as i can tell.

yes, in fact this is quite natural and good. This is how ideas naturally develop and mature, leading to even better ideas.

The evolution of video games. I'm sure that's the reason Zynga made this game.

This is getting pretty stupid.

Ah, nice, passive aggression. Because we're so mature right?

If they think Zynga is plagiarizing them, they should file a lawsuit and be direct in drumming up attention.