EA Sues Zynga for Copying The Sims Social
- Thread starter kitsuta
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The problem is of course, creating a legal precedent to do so. Again, we've already seen, this year, people trying to shake down others through the court system with the Assassins Creed thing. Now, when it's copying someone's story, the courts have a lot of experience, but when the accusation is copying someone else's game, that, not so much.Noble_Lance said:
You can say "nothing is original, everything is derivative" all you want, but the fact of the matter is, this isn't about everything being the same. It's about the danger of publishers having more control over what can and can't come to market.
Yeah...Zanez said:
SCS is just Sim City with all the boring Facebook Tropes latched on. The similarities between it and city ville are more because City Ville is Sim City with all the boring Facebook Tropes latched on and not because SCS copied them
.But regardless, not a fan of Zynga, EA's social gaming support team is nothing to praise however.
Yeah, good move EA. Kick em while their down. Destroy the company that was abandoned by their upper management, you know the people that likely told the rest of the company to rip off every game ever.
Yes it's nice to see Zynga being called out on their utter BS. No it's not nice that it is being done by EA right after Zynga took a massive hit to their stock options and losing some of the people at the top of the Zynga corporate ladder.
Yes it's nice to see Zynga being called out on their utter BS. No it's not nice that it is being done by EA right after Zynga took a massive hit to their stock options and losing some of the people at the top of the Zynga corporate ladder.
Battlefield and Modern Warfare are night and day, except for the close quarters expansion for battlefield I guess (and the singleplayer)Litchhunter said:
I know, isn't it great!? Let's hope they bleed out entirely.Fappy said:
I don't consider Zynga's business methods ethical, so I don't recognize their profits or even their existence to be legitimate. Thus I'd really like to see them die out.
Though both games suck anyway.
I just want to see the evidence that gets brought up at trial. For example, it's quite likely that we're going to see internal Zynga emails that say, "Let's copy Mob Wars," or, "Let's copy Tiny Tower." Specifically, they'll introduce one that says, "Let's copy The Sims Social," but it would really behoove them to introduce as many of these emails as they can, because it establishes a pattern. Juries and judges love patterns. But that's beside the point.
No single judgment can really bring Zynga down, not even when that judgment is on behalf of a company as large as EA on a license as large as The Sims. Tens of millions of dollars, tops. Zynga has $1.2 billion in cash and short-term investments (EA only has about twice that, actually). However, if evidence is introduced that functions as an admission of guilt with regard to copying games and EA wins... there's a lot of lawyers who would take cases from small development houses whose games have been cloned and do the cases on retainer, because there's already evidence and precedent.
As it stands, Zynga's been working on three unprofitable quarters, a potential lawsuit over a stock sale by Zynga officers and directors, and the COO got removed from his position last week. I wouldn't say the company's in free-fall, but they've got the 'chute on and are staring out the door of the airplane. Again, however, a lawsuit -even one from a company as big as EA- isn't going to kill Zynga (unfortunately). Their operating losses just aren't enough at the moment to cause the company to crumble under the weight of lawsuits, much as I might like to see that happen.
At first I saw this as being a quagmire like the Apple v. Microsoft "look and feel" case from 1994, but that was a case in which Apple was asserting claims over ideas (not copyrightable) rather than expression (which is copyrightable). In short, EA can't really copyright a city-building game or an anthropomorphized Tamagotchi (which The Sims functionally is). But expression being copyrightable, all you have to do is look at the expressions of the Sims characters versus the characters from The Ville (these pictures are available in the text of EA's filed complaint, which is eminently readable by anyone even without a legal background), and you'll see that those expressions are near-identical. Yes, I'm getting a bit literal with the "expressions" thing, but it fits especially well in this case.
No single judgment can really bring Zynga down, not even when that judgment is on behalf of a company as large as EA on a license as large as The Sims. Tens of millions of dollars, tops. Zynga has $1.2 billion in cash and short-term investments (EA only has about twice that, actually). However, if evidence is introduced that functions as an admission of guilt with regard to copying games and EA wins... there's a lot of lawyers who would take cases from small development houses whose games have been cloned and do the cases on retainer, because there's already evidence and precedent.
As it stands, Zynga's been working on three unprofitable quarters, a potential lawsuit over a stock sale by Zynga officers and directors, and the COO got removed from his position last week. I wouldn't say the company's in free-fall, but they've got the 'chute on and are staring out the door of the airplane. Again, however, a lawsuit -even one from a company as big as EA- isn't going to kill Zynga (unfortunately). Their operating losses just aren't enough at the moment to cause the company to crumble under the weight of lawsuits, much as I might like to see that happen.
At first I saw this as being a quagmire like the Apple v. Microsoft "look and feel" case from 1994, but that was a case in which Apple was asserting claims over ideas (not copyrightable) rather than expression (which is copyrightable). In short, EA can't really copyright a city-building game or an anthropomorphized Tamagotchi (which The Sims functionally is). But expression being copyrightable, all you have to do is look at the expressions of the Sims characters versus the characters from The Ville (these pictures are available in the text of EA's filed complaint, which is eminently readable by anyone even without a legal background), and you'll see that those expressions are near-identical. Yes, I'm getting a bit literal with the "expressions" thing, but it fits especially well in this case.
EA doing something good? Something I can... compliment?
Oh well, 2012. The world will end soon, all signs the signs are coming true.
Then again, it's still not enough for me not to consider them being dicks. And it's still a long way before I agree to install Origin.
Oh well, 2012. The world will end soon, all signs the signs are coming true.
Then again, it's still not enough for me not to consider them being dicks. And it's still a long way before I agree to install Origin.
This would explain why my index finger was twitching, my Kadzie sense was a-tingling...
'you will do something unheard of and go against your own die-hard belief'
Goooo... EA? W()()T!
'you will do something unheard of and go against your own die-hard belief'
Goooo... EA? W()()T!
even when i hate ?A and i never ever played any of zyngas games, i actually have to agree with ?A for suing them.
i have heard so many copyright violation articles from zynga that i really cant blame any company like ?A, for suing them.
i have heard so many copyright violation articles from zynga that i really cant blame any company like ?A, for suing them.
