Most anyone who has a computer has been on or at least heard
about Facebook. The website where you connect with friends online or locally
around your geographical area. Besides keeping in touch with your friends by posting on
their walls, there are lots of mini games to get involved in like Farmville or Mafia Wars. There’s no real end to these games, or goals as you keep gaining levels
in any of the Zynga games. The games are just a way to connect with friends and
end up eating up a lot of your free time.
Right now EA is suing Zynga for violating copyright laws for
ripping off their popular game, The Sims and making their own version “The Ville.” Playing the original sims when it first came out, I had a
good idea what to expect from the sims. “The Sims Social” made by EA is their Facebook
version of their very own Sims. Like the Sims series, you create your own person
and interact with people throughout the Facebook network with various requests
for more energy or items to complete sets of items. You use energy to do
actions like the Sims like being social with your neighbor or eating some pie.
Also you get to pick out clothes and a characteristic for your sim. I picked
out a charming personality. Just like original Sims you have to keep an eye on
the needs gauges making sure your sim makes it to the bathroom and gets enough
sleep. 
Playing The Ville seemed very much like playing EA’s the
social Sims. You do the same actions and the ville offered the same personality
types and similar clothes and goals. It seemed confusing whether I was playing either
EA’s “The Sims Social” or Zynga’s “The Ville.” The Sims animations when talking
to other Sims seemed identical. Also the gag of your sim eating a tiny or big
bite from the pie is in both versions. When you sim has a tiny bite, he or she
shrinks. A big bite will make your character bigger. The music also seems the same the easy breezy music style of
the Sims as the game loads up seems identical when you play Zynga’s version.
It seems very clear that Zynga wanted to ride the popularity
of the widely successful Sims from EA and create their own version. My question
was it worth it for Zynga to carbon copy the Sims and put themselves in a bad position
to be sued? Zynga already has popular games like Farmville on Facebook and many
others. Seemed like an unnecessary risk to take over a single game.
I wonder how the lawsuit will turn out? Zynga’s future seems
cloudy now when before it had a strong standing with Facebook making endless
games that tend to be addictive. Sometimes you have to leave a classic idea
alone and move on to make your own classics hopefully Zynga will learn that
lesson.
For more information, check out the article from CNN.
Grease Coakes
