14 DAY TRIAL // Zynga's path to the top of the social gaming companies pile may have been a bit controversial, but now that it's there it's not moving over too easily. The company is suing a Brazilian social gaming studio, Vostu, for copying pretty much all of its most popular games.
The fact that Vostu was more than 'inspired' by Zynga games is not really in dispute, the screenshots speak volumes, so do the names and the game mechanics.
But Zynga's games, especially the early ones, were clones, to put it mildly, of social games from other companies.
Zynga succeeded because it had a better marketing strategy and partly because of the more polished games.
Still, it doesn't take kindly to others copying its intellectual property and it's willing to sue anyone, including Google which is a key investor in Zynga, to get that message across.
"It is one thing to be inspired by Zynga games, but it is another to copy our key product features and intellectual property in violation of the law.” — Reggie Davis, general counsel at Zynga, said.
Zynga sued Vostu in California, its home turf, but also in Brazil. Now, the company has won its first battle, getting a judge in Brazil to issue injunctions against four Vostu games, MegaCity, Café Mania, Pet Mania and Vostu Poker.
If you're even vaguely familiar with Zynga games, you can pretty much guess which are the four Zynga equivalents.
But the injunction is pretty useless against Vostu alone, since all of the games run on third-party platforms, like Orkut and Facebook, which is where Google comes in.
"Zynga is pleased that the Court has reviewed the evidence and found good cause to issue an injunction order requiring Vostu and Google Orkut to cease distribution of four Vostu games," Zynga said in a press statement.
The injunction targets Vostu as well as Google's Orkut, which is the largest social network in Brazil. It's interesting to note that Google is a pretty big investor in Zynga and is trying to launch a social gaming platform of its own, with Zynga as a possible key partner.
Even more interesting, Zynga didn't include Facebook, which is number two in Brazil and which also carries Vostu games. [via TechCrunch]