Zynga vs Vostu: Brazilian game developer responds to Zynga infringement lawsuit

Yesterday, Zynga filed suit against Brazilian social game developer Vostu for infringement. According to detailed examples provided by Zynga, Vostu has copied Zynga games like CityVille and PetVille wholesale in its Mega City and Pet Mania games, even going so far as to replicating the company's mistakes in its games, as TechCrunch reports. In response to Zynga's detailed accusations, Vostu spokesman Davidson Goldin said:

    Zynga has been accused of copying so many games that they've sadly lost the ability to recognize games like ours that are chock full of original content and have been independently created. Vostu has 500 brilliant employees working night and day making hand drawings and writing proprietary code for online games that our 35 million users worldwide enjoy. Zynga's anti-competitive effort to bully us with a frivolous lawsuit - especially when we have some of the same key investors - is pathetic. While Zynga plays games with the legal process we will continue focusing on using our substantial resources to create games that entertain our customers.

Essentially, Vostu is responding how we initially responded to the news yesterday: Zynga has had a history of run-ins with other companies for similar reasons. Most recently, it's Oregon Trail expansion to FrontierVille had its name changed in response to a lawsuit filed by The Learning Company, the creators of the original PC adventure game. However, we're interested to see how Zynga responds to Vostu's, um, direct statement, but more importantly how the courts perceive the wealth of comparisons.

Zynga was worth $11.5 billion in March, and is tailing Activision Blizzard

And it has soared past EA's $6.35 billion. In its most recently revised S-1 filing to the Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC), Zynga wrote that its valuation was at $11.5 billion in March of this year, TechCrunch reports. The FarmVille maker made a number of other revisions to its filing for IPO, or when the company will become available for public trade on the stock market. This means that Zynga is worth almost twice as much as EA, the veteran video games publisher responsible for iconic hardcore game franchises like Madden and Battlefield.

Not to mention it means that Zynga likely still intends to file for IPO, which many expect will raise another $1 billion for the company and boost its valuation to up to $20 billion, amidst a recent stock market plunge and shrinking confidence. This puts Zynga just under Activision Blizzard, the publisher known for the Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero series worth $12.17 billion, according to NASDAQ. Keep in mind, that this number is from five months ago. And is Zynga was just $500 million or so beneath Activision then, it could arguably be worth more than the company right now based on how fast it has grown.

However, valuation is based on a numerous amount of factors that contribute to market perception of a company's worth, and not necessarily actual net worth (as is market cap). In addition, the company might have made itself even more attractive to investors, writing that just 63 percent of its revenue comes from its top three games, CityVille, Empires & Allies and FarmVille. Compare that to four years ago, when 93 percent of its revenue came in from its top games.

The main takeaway here is that A. Zynga seems to have no intention of backing out on its IPO, which is said to happen this fall, and B. Zynga is worth lots and lots of money--possibly more than the most valuable games company in the world. I honestly thought I'd never see the day ... no, I'm not crying. Someone must be cutting onions in here. You can read the full SEC filing right here, if you want to be bored to tears.

Zynga slaps Brazilian social game creator Vostu with lawsuit for copycatting

Zynga vs Vostu
Look, we all know Zynga has been pegged before for, how do you say, being inspired by their competitors' works. But that pales in comparison to what Vostu, a Brazilian social game publisher has done with popular games like CityVille and PetVille. The developer south of the equator has essentially copied several Zynga games wholesale--mistakes and all, as TechCrunch reports--into games like Mega City and Pet Mania. Lo and behold, Zynga has slapped Vostu with a big ol' lawsuit for, you guessed it, infringement. Zynga had this to say in its lawsuit:

    Vostu has brazenly appropriated the copyright-protected aspects of Zynga's games(as well as almost every other aspect of Zynga's business) – with scant effort to mask their strategy– and then offered games virtually identical to Zynga's games to prospective players in the United States and elsewhere.

Basically (and based on its previous run-ins with companies), Zynga sees drawing inspiration from and downright copying the opposition verbatim, as two different things. Though, again, that's also a slippery slope. The lawsuit, which Zynga filed in a San Francisco court (and TechCrunch has in full right here), displays detailed comparisons between its games and Vostu's, clearly supporting its case. It's a shame, too, because we'd love to see Vostu's take on games like FarmVille for iPhone--mistakes and all.

Idle Games shows first game Idle Worship's true social colors [Video]

Since co-founding social game hit maker Playdom, Rick Thompson has grown tired of the friend bar beneath Faecbook games. No, scratch that: He's grown tired of the way traditional Facebook games operate ... period. His contempt for this arguably tired form of Facebook game has helped spawn Idle Games and its first ever Facebook game, Idle Worship.

We first heard word of the potentially revolutionary social game way back in April, and Idle Games has launched the game into a closed beta test before presenting it to the audience of TechCrunch Disrupt, an event in San Francisco celebrating tech startups ran by TechCrunch. The overall gameplay of Idle Worship hasn't changed since we first heard about it, but now we have fancy video that reveals more of what the game is all about.

Through Idle Games's Idle Engine, Idle Worship does away with the friend found in almost all social games. Instead, your island of Mudlings (the people you oversee with either benevolence or tyranny) will be surrounded by not only your friends' islands, but players' islands based on how their Facebook profiles match up with your own.

Going even further, the game will slowly curate which of your friendships are stronger by bringing more active friends closer to your island, which is always at the center, and pushing your inactive friends away from your island. And, according to Idle Games CEO Jeffrey Hyman, your interactions with your friends will send ripples throughout the entire game in real time.

Through innovations like these, Hyman aims for Idle Games to become "the Pixar of casual games," according to TechCrunch. To better understand what we mean, check out Hyman's presentation below, and sign up for the ongoing closed beta test of the game right here.



Do you plan on signing up for the closed beta test of Idle Worship? What excites you most (or doesn't excite you) about the game? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment