The screenshot comparisons are quite damning.

Also, previously on Hacker News:

Zynga CEO: "Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1675483

I find it hard to believe that Zynga knew about -none- of those games. I could believe 1 or 2, but to have pre-existing examples of every game they are trying to sue over... I just can't believe that.

It sounds to me like Zynga forgot its roots.

What roots are you referring to? As pointed out by another in this article's discussion, Zynga has a well documented history of not caring about original production but rather looking around for successfull social games, copying them and throwing way more marketing dollars and gamification techniques at them so as to make the original irrelevant.

I've heard that internally, they call this practice "fast-following". I guess they had to invent some double-speak so the game devs didn't feel so bad in meetings!

They actively look for small games that are just starting to become successful, since those are easier to displace in the market.

I believe those are the roots he's referring to.

It's worse than that. They only gave examples for the games Zynga is suing over. Similar examples could be found for other Zynga games.

I'm actually perfectly find with Zynga copying other games. Even if every single game was a copy (it might be, I don't know) I'd still be fine. Because that's how software is done. You improve on other things you see. And others can do the same.

My problem is that they did the copying, but then tried to stop others from doing exactly the same thing.

Seems like these days, ownership of an idea is based on who has more money to pay lawyers.

Agree with that, and this is part of the whole discussion regarding intellectual property laws. The problem is that, unless technology finds a way to bypass them, we need even more lawyers to solve these problems.

Mayby Zynga is being offensive about this stuff. Being sued right now wouldn't be a good thing for Zynga.

If anyone out there was expecting to sue Zynga they just threw an elbow. Now you know, if you are thinking about fucking with Zynga, they aren't going to be quite.

I'm surprised Natsume (Harvest Moon) isn't suing all of these companies.

Sim Farm (Maxis)

If the whole idea is for zynga to win this and claim that their ripoff games are "original", this will set a terrible precedent for all indie developers

Reminds me of how the Tetris company likes to sue copycats left and right. But regardless, indies don't care.

The article is about copyright infringement, not trademark. The "Tetris" trademark is owned by Pajitnov, who invented the game.

  The Tetris Company, LLC (TTC) is based in Hawaii and
  is owned by Henk Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov. The
  company currently owns the trademark to the game
  Tetris, originally conceived by Pajitnov.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tetris_Company

If you look at the history of legal actions TTC has put forth, wouldn't you say their behavior is akin to sleazy patent lawyers?

Yes, I cannot agree with the way TTC has pressured developers based on "copyright" claims.

I wonder if TTC has a patent on "methods to deliver tetrominos to clear lines."