Electronic Arts is now locked in a legal battle with Zynga over similarities between The Sims Social and The Ville. EA COO Peter Moore described the battle as one not just for the developers at EA, but also for other developers around the industry who have had similar problems with Zynga.

“When we looked at The Ville we felt somewhat affronted by what we saw as copyright infringement,” said Moore. “We also feel from an industry perspective that a number of these things have happened before related to Zynga, but there’s never been a company that has the wherewithal and the resources to take it to the next level. We do.”

“We’re defending our Maxis studio, and we’re standing up for the industry,” continued Moore. “The roots of what we do as an industry is creative, from the minds of people who sit there and build storylines and characters and mesh it all together and work hard to do it. You take years to do that. And when you see somebody, quite frankly, take months replicating what you’ve done, you’re upset. We were upset. We were upset for Maxis. And we’ve seen enough of it from an industry perspective, with smaller publishers and developers who also put their hands up and said, ‘this is not right, but I don’t know what to do about it.’ We do.”

Source: Eurogamer