The publisher is taking a stand for creative development

Aug 22, 2012 19:21 GMT  ·  By

Publisher Electronic Arts has repeated its claim that the lawsuit it has launched against social game behemoth Zynga over the similarities between The Sims Online and The Ville is also a way of standing up for all the other companies that have seen their own concepts copied.

Peter Moore, the chief operations officer at Electronic Arts, has told Eurogamer that, “When we looked at The Ville we felt somewhat affronted by what we saw as copyright infringement. 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.”

The defense of The Sims Social and of the work that Maxis has done on it means that EA is acknowledging the amount of resources that game development requires and that the company is looking to protect its investment.

Moore argues that, “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.”

The COO says that other members of the video game industry have privately supported the Electronic Arts lawsuit, even if they are not able to do so openly.

Electronic Arts is looking for Zynga to acknowledge that it has copied much of the structure and the style of The Ville from The Sims Social.

Some experts have claimed that it will be hard for the publisher to make its case and that the legal action will be settled privately prior to it going before a jury.