Copying Trumps Creating For FarmVille Creator Zynga

theodp writes "The good news for Zynga is that it scored the cover of SF Weekly. The bad news is that the FarmVillains cover story starts out by describing the secret to the toast-of-Silicon-Valley company's success thusly: 'Steal someone else's game. Change its name. Make millions. Repeat.' SF Weekly says interviews conducted with several former Zynga workers indicate that the practice of stealing other companies' game ideas — and then using Zynga's market clout to crowd out the games' originators — was business as usual. 'I don't ****ing want innovation,' one ex-employee recalled Pincus saying. 'You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.' Another quipped that 'Zynga's motto is "Do Evil."' Valleywag piles on with an item on the existence of Zynga's underground 'Platinum Purchase Program,' reportedly geared towards making players known as 'whales' part with a minimum of $500 at a time for imaginary credits."

Comments

So let me be the 1st to say

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw Zynga. People need to immediately stop playing these money-draining pavlovian flash games

Re:good

[IndustrialComplex]

It does lead to an interesting debate regarding what we (the net) consider to be right and acceptable.

Here we have a story of someone seeing someone else doing something and basically saying, "I can do that." Do we get upset when a new pizza restaurant opens up? Or perhaps another excavation company? What makes this worse than some company saying "Hey, I can do that cheaper."

I realize there are issues with respect to intellectual property, but this IS an important point of discussion. When is the line crossed?

Re:good

[Culture20]

Nearly all of those proprietary apps are themselves clones.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

But three copylefts do.