So it seems Zynga has finally bitten off more than they can chew, and are having to face allegations of copying and repackaging games to make its gazillions of dollars.

No one can deny that Zynga games are popular – I myself play the various “with friends” games on my phone. But there also seems to be quite a popular belief that Zynga is evil – and gaming giant Electronic Arts is calling them on it.

In a glorious 50-page complaint (that you can read here), EA outlines exactly how Zynga’s new game The Ville was a complete and total rip-off of The Sims Social by EA. While I have to admit that I haven’t read the whole thing, I wouldn’t be surprised to find EA in the right on this one.

While the idea of patenting a concept seems a bit ridiculous to me, it appears that Zynga didn’t even bother to make many changes when they repackaged the game. As EA claims (on pg 14 of the complaint):

Every key element that has made The Sims series, and The Sims Social, so original and unique has been replicated by Zynga in The Ville.

I mean Zynga even used the exact same RGB skin tone values as The Sims Social. Given that RGB values result in over 16 million different colour combinations, it’s rather too small a chance that they would both choose exactly the same skin tones independently.

There are whole range of other points that EA makes from the showering sequences to the sleep sequences, from the cuddling and snuggling to the breakups that are all too similar to The Sims Social that it has to be considered copied.

It’s quite amusing how the complaint also dresses down Zynga’s previous games, with a whole section under the title “Zynga Is Widely Reported To Have Achieved Much Of Its Success In The Gaming Market Through Cloning Competitors’ Games”. Priceless.

Basically EA says that Zynga downright copied their game, which is in direct violation of United States copyright laws.

[Via Geekosystem]