Social gaming giant Zynga has settled with developer Kobojo over the use of 'Ville' in the title of one of Kobojo's games.
Kobojo launched
PyramidVille on Facebook earlier in the year, followed by a mobile version called
PyramidVille Adventures. This prompted Zynga - creator of mega-hits like
FarmVille and
CityVille - to file a lawsuit on May 15th.
Zynga was seeking damages of around three times the profits Kobojo has received for the game. Needless to say, that would have been very bad news indeed for the smaller party.
All's well that ends with VilleFortunately, both companies appear to have settled their differences out of court. Even better news - it didn't cost Kobojo a penny.
"Although the terms of the parties' settlement are confidential, the parties can confirm that neither party made any payment as part of the settlement," a Kobojo spokesman told
Gamasutra.
However, Kobojo has changed the name of
PyramidVille to
PyramidValley, while the mobile version is now called
PyramidValley Adventures.
Happy days, then? Perhaps not.
PyramidValley has dropped in popularity in a big way - from around 3 million monthly active users at its peak to around 430,000 now.
Joined:
Mar 2012
Post count:
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thetruthisoutthere | 16:14 - 21 October 2012
Despicable indeed. They seem to have taken inspiration from Apple's credo - it is OK for us to "borrow" ideas, but if anyone else dares to do that it is thermonuclear war.
Joined:
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Post count:
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Kbrpilot | 21:45 - 19 October 2012
Zynga's shamelessly "borrows" ideas from other companies all the time and then they sue a company over a similar sounding title. Kind of despicable if you ask me.
