Back in June, Zynga launched “The Ville” as part of their “Ville” franchise of games.  The game is like any other Zynga game which requires you to do tasks and interact with other players to gain experience points, coins, or rewards.  But that’s not the only thing The Ville is similar to, according to Electronic Arts, the game is an infringement of their popular game: “The Sims Social.”

According to EA, Zynga copied every aspect of their game from the ski-time palette which is available in eight tones, the personality traits that ranges from  athlete to villain greatly mimics The Sims’ jock-to-scoundrel lineup.

“Zynga’s design choices, animations, visual arrangements and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from ‘The Sims Social,’” Lucy Bradshaw, head of EA’s Maxis label, said in a statement. “The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable.”

Being sued for copying games isn’t new to Zynga.  They were sued by Digital Chocolate and The LEarning Channel for allegedly copying their games but those were settled.  The new case from EA is nothing new and they plan on defending their game in court.

“It’s unfortunate that EA thought that this was an appropriate response to our game, and clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic copyright principles,” Reginald Davis, Zynga’s general counsel, said in a statement.

“We plan to defend our rights to the fullest extent possible,” he added.

Legal implications

There’s a huge chance that the two gaming giants would settle the dispute out of court but there’s no telling whether EA would pursue an injunction against The Ville and if the court would side with them.  If the court does decide to grant an injunction stay, this could mean a huge loss for Zynga.  As I’ve mentioned, copyright lawsuits is nothing new to Zynga but they have never actually been sued by a large gaming company like EA before.  Even though Zynga stated that they are willing to defend themselves to the full extent, EA is a large gaming company that can afford to stretch the legal proceedings.  Zynga, though they’re earning quite a lot, is still young and is facing quite an obstacle since they went public.

“It’s definitely a battle; it’s going to be very costly and will take a lot of legal hours for EA to establish its claim,” said Jovan Johnson, partner at Los Angeles-based law firm Johnson & Moo. “The problem that I see for Zynga is that EA is well capitalized, they can afford to maintain the lawsuit.”

In other news…

EA unveiled games for the soon-to-be-launched Nintendo console, Wii U.   EA announced that the EA SPORTS is developing their two most popular sports videogames – FIFA Soccer 13 and Madden NFL 13 – for the Wii U.  The games will feature award-winning gameplay, HD graphics and new ways to play, and the games will be in stores around the world when the new console launches.

As for Zynga, their planning on invading mobile devices as the number of Zynga gamers on Facebook are dwindling down.  Zynga’s Chief Mobile Officer David Ko met with engineers and designers regarding the game they plan on launching this fall but the meeting was as blurry as their plan.  Zynga is still trying to figure out how they would entice a large number of social gamers to try social mobile gaming.