Zynga vs Vostu: Brazilian game developer responds to Zynga infringement lawsuit
Yesterday, Zynga filed suit against Brazilian social game developer Vostu for infringement. According to detailed examples provided by Zynga, Vostu has copied Zynga games like CityVille and PetVille wholesale in its Mega City and Pet Mania games, even going so far as to replicating the company's mistakes in its games, as TechCrunch reports. In response to Zynga's detailed accusations, Vostu spokesman Davidson Goldin said:
Zynga has been accused of copying so many games that they've sadly lost the ability to recognize games like ours that are chock full of original content and have been independently created. Vostu has 500 brilliant employees working night and day making hand drawings and writing proprietary code for online games that our 35 million users worldwide enjoy. Zynga's anti-competitive effort to bully us with a frivolous lawsuit - especially when we have some of the same key investors - is pathetic. While Zynga plays games with the legal process we will continue focusing on using our substantial resources to create games that entertain our customers.
Essentially, Vostu is responding how we initially responded to the news yesterday: Zynga has had a history of run-ins with other companies for similar reasons. Most recently, it's Oregon Trail expansion to FrontierVille had its name changed in response to a lawsuit filed by The Learning Company, the creators of the original PC adventure game. However, we're interested to see how Zynga responds to Vostu's, um, direct statement, but more importantly how the courts perceive the wealth of comparisons. We've contacted Zynga for comment.
What do you think of Vostu's response? Does Zynga have a place in suing Vostu, and does the company's response hold weight? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
