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Zynga Accused of Cloning Hit Indie iPhone Game Tiny Tower

Posted by samzenpus on from the we-did-it-first dept.

FrankPoole writes "Indie iPhone game developer Nimblebit is accusing social games giant Zynga of ripping off its popular mobile title Tiny Tower. Nimblebit's Ian Marsh got word out about the similarities between Dream Heights and Tiny Tower with an image that's still making the Twitter rounds. The image is made up of screenshots showing how Dream Heights' interface and gameplay mechanics appear strikingly similar to Tiny Tower's."

14 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Game rules do not underlie copyright by Kirth · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

    --
    "The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
    1. Re:Game rules do not underlie copyright by DrXym · · Score: 4, Informative

      Perhaps not, but then again nobody is suing them either. This is more about moral rules than the law.

      Zynga has no morals.

  2. Too bad Nimblebit is hypocritical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://i.imgur.com/ajaYt.jpg

    1. Re:Too bad Nimblebit is hypocritical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      drumscowski admits within that he hasn't even played tiny tower - if he had he'd realise it's not a vague 'influence' that nimblebit is pissed off about - such as he took from similar games - it's essentially a direct clone with a new skin on top of it.

    2. Re:Too bad Nimblebit is hypocritical by grumbel · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't make a judgment until you have actually played all the games. I haven't, but at least from what one can read on the Internet from people who have: SimTown plays quite different, TinyTower and Zyngas game almost identical and it's not like this is the first time Zynga has done something like this, see FarmTown vs FarmVille.

  3. Sim Tower by Voxol · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTower

    Or as they say, 'everything is a remix'.

    1. Re:Sim Tower by duk242 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I found TinyTower whilst looking for something similar to SimTower for my iPhone. It's quite obvious that TinyTower is inspired by SimTower, however it's not really all that much like what SimTower was. Zynga's version however is a direct copy of everything from TinyTower.

    2. Re:Sim Tower by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've played both SimTower and Tiny Tower. They can only be described as a "remix" if you go to a high enough level that all you can see is that both games have commercial tower construction involved.

      In Tiny Tower, you manage all of the people in the building, as well as what each floor is doing - what the stores stock, who works where, who lives where, etc.

      In SimTower, you just put in the "zoned" space, and people move in and pay you rent. You manage the building from a facilities perspective, screwing about with elevator timings and where the box stays in the shaft when no one's in it. You manage traffic flow within your building so you don't end up with pissed off people that just want to get out of your building at the end of the day.

      They are quite different games. In fact, after finding Tiny Tower, it inspired me to fire up DOSBox with Windows 3.1 and play some SimTower.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  4. Re:Happens all the time. by teg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let's see... when I was a kid in the days of Apple ][, these neighbors of ours (Stoltzfus family) came up with a graphical programming language.

    They showed it to Apple, hoping that Apple would buy. Apple strongly considered it, and then returned it, saying that they weren't interested.

    A year later, they came out with Apple Logo, which was immensely popular.

    Logo was created in the 60s, turtles and all. It was popular on other systems as well in the early 80s, so it doesn't really seem to me that they did anything wrong here?

  5. Not the first time for Zynga by tnerb123 · · Score: 4, Informative

    They have been ripping off other games forever! Farmville was a rip off of FarmTown. Mafia wars was a rip off of MobWars! This company is only a copy cat company that can not create its own games!

  6. Re:Happens all the time. by Pieroxy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, except for the fact that they didn't steal anything, you're right. Xerox gave it away. Willfully.

    --
    Write boring code, not shiny code!
  7. Re:Thompson and Ritchie by mypalmike · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can't stand it any more! Three posts in a row! I must say something!

    It's "bald faced", not "bold faced"!

    OK, I feel a little better.

    --
    There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
  8. Re:marketing.. by leonardluen · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am not saying Zynga is going to be losing any sleep over this

    oh i very well doubt Zynga will lose any sleep over this...

    ex staffer says "zynga's motto is 'do evil'". also "the source said that staffers were, and are still, instructed to blatantly steal the idea of competitors. He recalls a time when founder Mark Pincus spoke on the subject, allegedly saying “I don’t f**king want innovation. You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.” "

  9. Re:Happens all the time. by ArmchairGeneral · · Score: 3, Informative

    So the lawsuit that Xerox brought against Apple says it wasn't stolen? http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-suit-against-apple-barred.html I think those who believe it wasn't stolen are morons.