Zynga sued by EA for copyright infringement

[Anastasia]

I smell bankruptcy.

[Dracos]

Glee.  GLEE.

[Grahf]

Well, it's over. Both companies settled out of court for undisclosed terms: http://gamepolitics.com/2013/02/15/ea-and-zynga-settle-ville-sims-social-lawsuits#.USBqCGennqM

As strange as it is to say, I'm honestly a little torn. While this settlement certainly might mean that Zynga won't have taken away any sort of meaningful lesson regarding potential copyright infringement, I can't see a situation where if a side came out as a clear definitive winner that wouldn't be worse for gamers, regardless of which side won.

[Jason_Miao]

"...but EA says it's taking a stand now to not only protect its own rights, but also defend the rights of smaller studios who might not have the resources to fight the company."

I wonder what EA's going to be passing out to the indie devs.  Since they were suing on behalf of those who couldn't, and all.

I'm not torn on this at all.  It sucks.  These settlements are generally accompanied by the agreement that no one was at fault.  So it's likely that Zynga gets to keep doing what it's doing, and just learned to pick on people who aren't their own size.

My broader thought is that this isn't the first time that I've thought that really ought to be a indie dev lobbyist group.  Not to buy off senators, since they wouldn't have the money for that.  But an Amicus Brief or two signed from everyone that Zynga ripped off of might have been appropriate.  A Federal Judge isn't necessarily going to know the ins and outs of independent development, and a group like that might have been able to get the judge to do something about Zynga in general.  Having a group that is responsible for looking out for this sort of behavior could be helpful.

[Brian]

Since this has become the de-facto Zynga/EA/developers we think are evil discussion thread:

http://www.develop-online.net/news/43388/EA-taking-microtransactions-in-house

[Brian]

More EA misfortune:

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/following-800-poor-reviews-amazon-stops-selling-download-copies-of-simcity-2013037/

[Dracos]

I'd be more pleased with the market being clear for our product...

But shit like this doesn't help anybody.  It just leaves a bunch of frustrated people pissed off at Gaming.  Screw you EA.  Make a better product so we can beat you with an awesome one.

[Jason_Miao]

EA's CEO is no longer EA's CEO.

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=749234

[Grahf]

I'd be more excited about this, but I have a sinking feeling that it might be a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

[Jason_Miao]

Yeah, pretty much.  I obtained the link from Slashdot, which billed it as a result of the SimCity launch.  It's optimistic to think that's the case, but who really knows?

[Dracos]

Well...

To be fair?  Cut and Paste License Douche at least didn't have thousands of people losing their job to manage it.

Truthfully, all I see is flavors of pessimism, but comparatively, EA's CEO was at the helm for a lot of their really more abhorrent disasters.  Before people complained they were lifeless, lacked quality, and churned out copies, 'wrecking' good studios.  Now they still say that, but they also think they're greedy unrepentent pricks that attack their customers regularly.  They were a machine monster before...

and now they're a machine monster that also hits the people that give them money. 

As bad as it may be, it's certain that the current status quo only held eventual death for the company and all who worked at it.