Electronic Arts has filed a lawsuit against Zynga for copyright infringement related to The Sims Social. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and EA says that Zynga’s The Ville was willful infringement of The Sims Social copyright.

EA pointed to the hiring of EA chief operating officer John Schappert (now former Zynga COO), ex-EA Play executive vice president Jeff Karp (Zynga chief marketing officer), and former EA Interactive senior vice president Barry Cottle, (Zynga’s executive vice president of corporate and business development). “Thus, by early 2012, Zynga had target and hired away three of EA’s top executive who had access to the most sensitive design, development, and strategic information about the Sims Social,” reads the complaint.

“Zynga’s design choices, animations, visual arrangements and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from The Sims Social,” said EA Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw in a statement.”The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable. Scores of media and bloggers commented on the blatant mimicry.”

“This is a case of principle. Maxis isn’t the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product,” noted Bradshaw. “But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it. Infringing a developer’s copyright is not an acceptable practice in game development. By calling Zynga out on this illegal practice, we hope to have a secondary effect of protecting the rights of other creative studios who don’t have the resources to protect themselves.”

Zynga responded to this with a statement that danced around the subject at hand. “We are committed to creating the most fun, innovative, social and engaging games in every major genre that our players enjoy” said Zynga.”The Ville is the newest game in our ‘ville’ franchise – it builds on every major innovation from our existing invest-and-express games dating back to YoVille and continuing through CityVille and CastleVille, and introduces a number of new social features and game mechanics not seen in social games today.”

“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. It’s also ironic that EA brings this suit shortly after launching SimCity Social which bears an uncanny resemblance to Zynga’s CityVille game. Nonetheless, we plan to defend our rights to the fullest extent possible and intend to win with players, ” concluded Zynga.

Source: Scribd.com