Zynga Accused of Cloning Hit Indie iPhone Game Tiny Tower

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Zynga Accused of Cloning Hit Indie iPhone Game Tiny Tower

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @10:36PM 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."

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marketing.. by ardiri · 2012-01-25 22:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nimblebit just got a tonne of marketing over this - who cares about the ripoff? marketing 101 => success!
1. Re:marketing.. by jones_supa · 2012-01-25 23:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's so often how these days the winner is the one who has the biggest muscle to shove the product down the people's throats.
2. Re:marketing.. by hairyfeet · 2012-01-26 00:59 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Yeah but it is kinda sad a guy can bust his ass making something unique only to have some scumbum company like Zynga bold face copy the thing. it looks like they only gave it a little graphical polish and called it a day, pretty obvious ripoff IMHO. hopefully the guy can get a good lawyer that will rip Zynga a new one.
  
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3. Re:marketing.. by leonardluen · 2012-01-26 02:27 · 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.” "
Game rules do not underlie copyright by Kirth · 2012-01-25 22:39 · Score: 5, Informative

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

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1. Re:Game rules do not underlie copyright by Lumpio- · 2012-01-25 22:46 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Perhaps not, but then again nobody is suing them either. This is more about moral rules than the law.
2. Re:Game rules do not underlie copyright by DrXym · 2012-01-25 23:33 · 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.
So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 22:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

Making similar games is perfectly fine. If the basic idea is good, why not have multiple games implement it? Nobody is claiming that every single shooter is a Doom ripoff or that every single strategy game is a Dune ripoff.
Ideas have to be free so they can be used by everyone for everyones benefit.
1. Re:So what? by MDillenbeck · 2012-01-25 23:52 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  This may be a good time to use the low-tech equivalent to check the validity of the arguments. I don't know anything about the two apps in question, but ask yourself this: at what point would a variant of the board game Monopoly be different enough to ensure Parker Brothers couldn't sue you? Would be keeping the same rules, same basic board layout, and same "props" (player tokens, money, property cards, dice, and two decks of event cards) while changing the color, name, and art style of those keep you from being sues? For example, could I make the tokens space ships, the properties different star systems, the money "space credits" that use plastic coins instead of paper bills, and use public domain images of the star systems and call is "Stellar Baron" and not get sued?
  Now back to the user interface. If this was the user interface of an operating system, would the original OS UI maker have a court case? What if it was a general application interface? What about making a knock-off of Farmville in the same manner... or replicating its mechanics with a new graphical interface and naming convention - would the developer of the game get sued, and would it be successful?
  Finally, if there is a lawyer in the house, what court cases have set precedent in these areas? Honestly, I do not know the answer to these as law is not my field of study. However, I do know I need to know the history of how courts have ruled before I can say whether this is a legal violation or not. (My personal bias: I believe large companies have successfully sued, while small independent game developers of boardgames often have not - but this is based only on a one week investigation into the board game developer career.)
Too bad Nimblebit is hypocritical by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 22:40 · Score: 4, Informative

http://i.imgur.com/ajaYt.jpg
1. Re:Too bad Nimblebit is hypocritical by grumbel · 2012-01-25 23:19 · 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.
Sim Tower by Voxol · 2012-01-25 22:46 · Score: 5, Informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTower
Or as they say, 'everything is a remix'.
1. Re:Sim Tower by duk242 · 2012-01-25 23:31 · 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 · 2012-01-26 00:18 · 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.
  
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Intellectual property laws in action by slasho81 · 2012-01-25 23:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you copy a big company, the big company will sue you out of existence.
If you copy a small company, the small company will complain so hard you better watch out!
GNU/Cloning by tepples · 2012-01-25 23:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is more about moral rules than the law.
So should Linus Torvalds and the GNU project "morally" not have cloned UNIX when making GNU/Linux?
1. Re:GNU/Cloning by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-26 00:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No, they should have, because they did morally copy it and then gave it away for all of us to share and benefit. This is not what Zynga is doing. Zynga does not care about the community and society, they only care about their own coffers.
Re:marketing?! by TaoPhoenix · 2012-01-25 23:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Can we pair stories and see what happens?
X stories down we just had "Your photo infringes on his photo because it contained similar design elements". Now we have "Zynga accused of infringing on Nimblebit's version because it contains similar design bits"? Yet our reactions are *different*?
Why aren't that first photographer happy that the second one "handed over free marketing"?
I think we just stumbled on a new flaw in copyright besides the other famous ones: That there are *different classes* of works, but only one copyight law! So we have the same law handling Red Buses In Photos and Nimblebit Games and Twilight Movies. So the judges are handing down rulings that almost make sense for one class of works, and lead to frightening results in the other classes, with lawyers eating it all for dinner.

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Re:Happens all the time. by teg · 2012-01-25 23:56 · 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?
Not the first time for Zynga by tnerb123 · 2012-01-26 00:17 · 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!
In Related Old News: Zynga Sues Vostu for Cloning by famazza · 2012-01-26 00:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

I remember very well. In the remote year of 2011 Zynga was accusing Vostu of cloning some of their game.
Also in 2009 Zynga was sued for Copyright infringement, this time the settlement was filled by Psycho Monkey, due to the game Mafia Wars.
It seems that there is something very supicious happening with Zynga.

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Thompson and Ritchie by tepples · 2012-01-26 01:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yeah but it is kinda sad a guy can bust his ass making something unique only to have some scumbum company like Zynga bold face copy the thing.
Likewise it's kinda sad that Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie can bust their asses making something unique only to have some scumbum company like FSF bold face copy the thing. Or are you trying to say cloning the functionality of a computer program is OK as long as the publisher of the clone is one of Slashdot's darling companies?
1. Re:Thompson and Ritchie by mypalmike · 2012-01-26 02:17 · 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.
  
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Re:Happens all the time. by dietdew7 · 2012-01-26 01:10 · Score: 5, Funny

It's a well documented fact that while Steve Jobs was at Parc stealing the GUI for the Mac, he also stole an office chair, a box of copy paper and a red Swingline stapler.
Re:Happens all the time. by voss · 2012-01-26 01:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

Actually Apple did steal a lot of their ideas for the Mac from the Xerox Parc
"No, Steve, I think its more like we both have a rich neighbor named Xerox, and you broke in to steal the TV set, and you found out I'd been there first, and you said. "Hey that's no fair! I wanted to steal the TV set! - Bill Gates' response after Steve Jobs accused Microsoft of borrowing the GUI (Graphical User Interface) from Apple for Windows 1.0* "
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa043099.htm
Re:Happens all the time. by Pieroxy · 2012-01-26 01:36 · Score: 4, Informative

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

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Re:Happens all the time. by msauve · 2012-01-26 02:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Actually Apple did steal a lot of their ideas for the Mac from the Xerox Parc"

If, by "steal," you mean "bought and paid for with pre-IPO stock shares," you're right.

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Re:Happens all the time. by msauve · 2012-01-26 04:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

You've never seen/used a Xerox Star/Alto, have you, Troll? I have. They were much more like Windows 1.0 than Lisa/Mac.

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Re:Happens all the time. by ArmchairGeneral · 2012-01-26 05:04 · 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.