EA: Zynga's Infringement on Sims Social is ''Unmistakable''
EA says the infringement is so severe, it's hard to distinguish Maxis' The Sims Social and Zynga's The Ville with an untrained eye.
Electronic Arts announced on Friday that it has filed a a lawsuit on behalf of its Maxis Label against Zynga Inc. for infringing EA’s copyrights to its Facebook game, The Sims Social.
According to the publisher, the complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on August 3, 2012. It alleges that Zynga has willfully and intentionally “copied and misappropriated the original and distinctive expressive elements of The Sims Social in a violation of U.S. copyright laws" with the launch of The Ville on Facebook.
"The similarities go well beyond any superficial resemblance," said Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager of EA’s Maxis Label, in a recent blog post. "Zynga’s design choices, animations, visual arrangements and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from The Sims Social. The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable. Scores of media and bloggers commented on the blatant mimicry."
The Sims Social launched in August 2011, bringing the distinctive Sims universe to Facebook. EA claims that it became an instant hit, rapidly gaining "tens of millions" of users. The Sims Social currently maintains a user base of several million active players on the popular social network alone (the iOS and Android apps are separate). Meanwhile, Zynga's The Ville was introduced in June 2012, and Bradshaw claims the infringement of The Sims Social was "unmistakable to those of us at Maxis" as well as to players and the industry at large.
"This is a case of principle," Bradshaw said. "Maxis isn’t the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product. But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it. Infringing a developer’s copyright is not an acceptable practice in game development. By calling Zynga out on this illegal practice, we hope to have a secondary effect of protecting the rights of other creative studios who don’t have the resources to protect themselves."
"Today, we hope to be taking a stand that helps the industry protect the value of original creative works and those that work tirelessly to create them," she added.
As of this writing, Zynga has not responded to the lawsuit.
Fail on two fronts... first, this article is about Sims Social, NOT Sim City Social. Second, Sim City has been around since the early 90's at least.
Fail on two fronts... first, this article is about Sims Social, NOT Sim City Social. Second, Sim City has been around since the early 90's at least.
But can you buy a tiny virtual violin?
Cityville has a distinctive different micromanagement. It feels a lot more like managing a communist city than actually running a city.
Sim City Society was EA's attempt at building a new fan base. They not only failed to repeat the success of the original SimCity, but they also pissed off many of the existing fans that thought SCS was a true successor to SC4.
Failure in reading comprehension.
It was a tongue-in-check response because SimCity Social and Cityville are also damn near identical, and yet this does not make waves. The point being that they are both dirt-bags who liberally copy game-play and layout ideas from eachother, it is hardly a one-way street. And there is nothing illegal about having a similar product unless they can prove that they copied code, or that there is some active deception of claiming that one product is the other.
Fail on one front for you, SimCity came out in late '89!
The Sims Social (left) and The Ville (right)
Of course The Ville and Sims Social will have similarities. As games in the same genre that's what is supposed to happen! There are supposed to be similarities. This is why it can be hard to distinguish Modern Warfare 3 from Battlefield 3, Need For Speed from Ridge Racer, or Medal of Honor from Red Orchestra. I'm not willing to allow EA to claim exclusive ownership over the human simulator genre with their The Sims franchise. I'm also not willing to jump all over Zynga because they've taken established ideas and made them better. Dream Heights did what Tiny Tower did but better, and they both stemmed from Sim Tower. I'm not going to punish someone for innovation. If Zynga can do it better then let them.
It's better for the industry as a whole to fight against EA's copyright claim. Let them compete with Zynga. Don't punish innovation and competition. EA wants to perform an NFL-style lockout against Zynga to keep them out of the human simulator genre -- EA's most profitable business acquisition.