Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has responded to recent plagiarism accusations by saying the social game developer's modus operandi isn't to rip off other titles, but to refine and improve them so they're the best on the market.
"We evolve genres by making games free, social, accessible and highest quality," he wrote, drawing comparisons between his own company and major tech firms like Facebook, Google and Apple.
"Google didn't create the first search engine. Apple didn't create the first mp3 player or tablet. And, Facebook didn't create the first social network. But these companies have evolved products and categories in revolutionary ways. They are all internet treasures because they all have specific and broad missions to change the world."
Last week Nimblebit, the developer of Tiny Tower, released an open letter to Zynga criticising Dream Heights for numerous similarities to its game. In his internal email, Pincus pointed out that the gameplay concept used by Nimblebit wasn;t original, saying the dev is equally guilty of reproducing ideas.
"With regard to Dream Heights and the tower genre, it's important to note that this category has existed since 1994 with games like Sim Tower and was more recently popularized in China with Tower of Babel in 2009 which achieved 15 million DAUs," he explained.
"On iOS there has been Yoot Tower, Tower Up, Tower Town, Tower Blocks and Tiny Tower. Just as our games, mechanics and social innovations have inspired and accelerated the game industry, its 30 year body of work has inspired us too."
The Zynga CEO went on to admit that its most popular titles aren't the original ideas, but claimed the studio has evolved them to make them better.
"Zynga Poker, FarmVille, CityVille and Words with Friends, none of these games were the first to market in their category but we made them the most fun and social, and the most popular.
"Our teams continue to build and improve these games every week which has been an important part of our success model. We run our games as a live service and we continue to iterate, innovate and improve on them to give our players the best possible experience."
Following Nimblebit's claim, Buffalo Studios also accused Zynga of copying one of its titles with Zynga Bingo.
Comments
11 comments so far...
theaface on 1 Feb '12 said:
This line is wrong. Nimblebit created Tiny Tower, which is the original. Zynga were behind Dream Heights, the rip off.
wrightandrewjame on 1 Feb '12 said:
Still got sued for stealing someone else's idea didn't they?
It's all a rather lousy excuse. When their games are almost identical to another company's it almost as if they're asking to be sued. Of course they've made enough money by stealing ideas not to care if they get sued or not.
monkeyd_93 on 1 Feb '12 said:
The difference is all those formentioned companies took concepts and innovated them, where as Zynga just blatantly ripped off other games and made a clone.
Desert Fox on 1 Feb '12 said:
That guy couldn't sound like more of a t**t if he tried.
darry on 1 Feb '12 said:
Google didn't invent the search engine. Neither did they steal Yahoo's algorithm and knock up a different looking page for it to hide behind. This guy's lawyer is currently facepalming his hands off.
MPH on 1 Feb '12 said:
Exactly. If I had a Michael Jackson singing voice and manually created Thriller from scratch, then released it to the world, I'm sure I'd get assraped by lawyers.
Lawyers, they love a bit of assraping.
roland82 on 1 Feb '12 said:
I kind of crappy attitude to take, especially as being the bigger company Zynga can bully the smaller guys. I just hope they remember saying this in the future if a larger company starts ripping off their ideas/games.
Imaduck on 1 Feb '12 said:
Bit like Apple's approach then huh? - f**king weak.
gmcb007 on 1 Feb '12 said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH..*breaths*...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH..HA ha ha haaaa.
Wow that's the funniest thing i've heard all day!
TheLastDodo on 1 Feb '12 said:
They're not even the best plagiarist's on the App Store.
http://www.technologytell.com/gaming/files/2012/01/Modern-Combat-3-title-screen.jpg
http://www.technologytell.com/gaming/files/2012/01/AC-130.jpg
http://blog.gameloft.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Modern-Combat-3_iPad_MP2.png
http://www.148apps.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/moderncombat304.jpg
I wonder which game this was "inspired" by
darry on 1 Feb '12 said:
Mario's Picross?