Tiny Tower dev wishes Zynga luck on clone

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jan 25th 2012 10:50AM

NimbleBit, the three-person indie team responsible for the iOS hit Tiny Tower, is voicing its displeasure with Zynga's Dream Heights via passive aggressive infographic. Posted by NimbleBit's Ian Marsh, the graphic wishes Zynga luck with its new iPhone game that shares more than a passing resemblance to Tiny Tower.

"We wanted to thank all you guys for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year Tiny Tower," NimbleBit wrote to Zynga's 2,789 employees. "Good luck with your game, we are looking forward to inspiring you with our future games!"

Marsh does note that Zynga did try to acquire NimbleBit first, but seems to have decided on a different route. The iOS scene, with its shorter development cycles and lower barrier to entry, has seen numerous examples of games the blur the line between "inspiration" and blatant theft.

NimbleBit Letter to Zynga

Via: TouchArcade
Source: Twitter - @eeen

Tags: clone, dream-heights, ios, iphone, mobile, NimbleBit, tiny-tower, Zynga

Reader Comments (49)

Can't Zynga die already?

@Doctor Who
Surely you'd know when they'd be biting the dust. What with your time travel and all.

If they are going down please take Rovio with them.

@Jimjamyaha

You shouldn't hate Rovio too much. They've been in the mobile game business for a while. Angry Birds is their real first success. I'll admit they're milking it a bit with Angry Birds and potential shareholders are idiots if they think Rovio or Zynga are guaranteed moneymakers into the future, but we should congratulate the little guy Rovio for finally making a hit.

@Jimjamyaha

Rovio may be milking it with making the same game on EVERY PLATFORM KNOWN TO MAN... but it's still just their take on an artillery based game. Zynga, on the other hand, are just evil and now resorting to plagiarism to make their shareholders happy.

The sooner this sinking ship disappears, the better off we'll be...

@Doctor Who

They are BOTH a clone of SimTower (1994) so ..

meh.

wow, if I didn't already completely ignore Zynga already I definitely would now. What a dick move, wish NimbleBit had enough manpower/$ to sue their asses.

@psyXcho How? The genre has been around since 1994. That would be like Zynga suing whoever does Words By Post because they copied Words With Friends, ignoring the fact that they're both copies of Scrabble.

Zynga tried to buy these guys out, they didn't want to be acquired, so Zynga wrote their own version. This happens all the time, and big companies like Apple, Google, etc. all do it.

@vedichymn

Just because it's "legal" doesn't make it any less of a dick move to basically steal their IP and rerelease it without adding anything, other than an uglier art style, to the formula.

@vedichymn

Did you look at the pictures? It's the SAME GAME! It's like taking a track from a song, adding it to yours and claiming it's your own. I'm also surprised there hasn't been a suit against Words With Friends from the Scrabble group. Then again, I'm not a lawyer.

@psyXcho It's not illegal, that's why.

@psyXcho

Gameloft's built their company on doing the same thing.

@MayorMikeHaggar
wrong
gameloft "copies" mostly console/PC games that aren't available on iOS/android. and they don't copy 1:1, just some main features, genre, setting, and "name"
not very creative, but their games are enjoyable.

this on the other hand is almost a 1:1 copy. only they use fugly "cartoons" (plus a GUI from hell)

@jsx92

Actually, it is illegal when it is too similar, which is the case here.

That's why everytime the Verve plays Bitter Sweet Synphony they have to pay to the Rolling Stones, and why Sting is listed as the composer of I'll be Missing You, not Puff Daddy.

It's up to a court to decide if it's too similar, but common sense has already judged in favor of Nimblebit.

@psyXcho

Vanilla Ice did that once.

@Dashx747
First, court decisions rarely align with common sense - not that any legal action will be taken here. Second, this is perfectly legal; gameplay cannot be patented nor copyrighted. Also, I doubt Zenga directly copied any assets, so your examples wont work as precedent here. Their game is legal the same way Tris (while not allowed on the app store... which come to think of it should be Nimblebit's plan) is legal. But I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong.

Luck You, Zynga!

Nimblebit? The bastards who abandoned Zero Gear on PC?
I hope Zynga CRUSHES them

I remember playing this game when I was younger, funny I remember it being called SimTower though.

@Rabidmofo These games are nothing close to Sim Tower. There's nothing "sim" about these games. They are all "farm-based" games, it's just that it's a tower instead of a farm.

Don't use Facebook, but from the Tiny Tower page on Wikipedia it sounds kind of similar.

But the differences do give me an idea. Make a Facebook version of "The Sims" where all your Sims are prostitutes.

@Rabidmofo

Don't ever compared either game to SimTower. They are cow clickers and nothing more.

To be fair, Tiny Tower is just a rip off of SimTower, so Maxis could have said that to NimbleBit, too

@AllFallD0wn If you played Tiny Tower, it's nothing like Sim Tower. Tiny Tower is just a simple "farm" game, but instead of a farm, you have a tower.

@AllFallD0wn Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

@pika2000 I'm sorry but the main inspiration for Tiny Tower is Yoot Saito's tower games. Unless of course you're trying to say that NimbleBit was copying Farmville since Tiny Tower is a farming game... el oh el.

Maxis´ reaction:

http://www.topofthegames.com/wp-content/up loads/2012/01/zynga.jpg

@OtaQ They are both tower style games, yes, but there are massive differences in the gameplay. Tiny Tower is its own unique take on the genre of tower games where SimTower was something else.

The difference here is that Zynga isn't trying something new. They are blatantly ripping off Tiny Tower. There's no difference aside from the art style. They took NimbleBit's idea and put it under their name so they could make money off it, and that's what disturbs me.

Zynga doesn't care about games or gamers. They care about money.

Am I the only one who "notcied" the typo?

@j swift

They were notcies, dude?

@baby sea tuna

No, dude, these devs are cowards.

Maxis´ reaction:

http://www.topofthegames.com/wp-content/up loads/2012/01/zynga.jpg

Zynga is notorious for copying games. I never like them in the first place. At least Tiny Tower's model doesn't punish the player if they don't check on the game 24/7, unlike most Zynga farm-based games.

Yoot Saito is on the phone.

@Softserve I wish he'd make another true tower game on a current gen platform. Would be amazing.

Pure win.

I'm now going to buy Tiny Tower Dev only because of this.

@BoBsS
Too bad it's free. Maybe you can buy $25 worth of tower bux through the in-app purchasing, though.

Also, there are many indie devs where I would jump up and defend them.. But Tiny Tower might as well be vertical Farmville. Maybe NimbleBit didn't rip Zynga off quite as blatantly as they are being ripped off now, but Tiny Tower feels like a Zynga game...which is to say it feels like a crappy time sink game. The fact that Zynga is making one seems somehow more appropriate than learning that this brain drain was developed by three enthusiastic, enterprising developers.

Zygna is notorious for copying (in some cases exactly) indie developers ideas. This is no shocker there. In most cases, the indie doesn't have the resources to sue, in others Zygna just throws a wad of cash at the company to shut it up.

Zygna didn't do anything illegal but everyone who works for the company should be absolutely ashamed.

While Zynga sucks for blatantly ripping off games, Tiny Towers is just another cow clicker game, so I'm not exactly concerned about the whole issue. The games suck, simply put. As gamers, these are not games we should be supporting.

@AGuyOnTheInternet
It's just a matter of taste. I believe every dev should get a chance and support, especially this 3 person team. For someone who likes Farmville I'm sure Tiny Tower is a great game, but you're right, not a game for a hardcore gamer.

"Good luck with your game, we are looking forward to inspiring you with our future games!"

Genius. These guys are great and Zynga is going down.

You'd think out of the 2,789 Zygna workers, one of them must have an original idea.

Remember when 85% of Joystiq articles weren't about casual ios games that the demographic for said games don't browse gaming websites? I sure do. That all being said, I'm glad this small dev is trying to stick up for themselves. God knows how or why Zynga got so popular.

Now *that* is classy.

Why doesnt Zynga just go and ionno do something not stupid?

I played Tiny Tower for two days and got bored. :/

Sucks for them that their idea got copied, though. It should be a badge of honor in today's industry to be ripped off by either Gameloft or Zynga.

I'm surprised everyone is so surprised about Zynga doing this... this IS their business strategy. This isn't the first time they've done something like this... in fact, I'd be more surprised if they came up with a new game on their own.

Dream Heights copies Tiny Tower
Farmville copies Farm Town
Mafia Wars copies Mob Wars (Zynga settled and lost millions on it)
Cafe World copies Restaurant City

There was even a quote by the founder of Zynga telling their programmers to just copy their competition. No, seriously. Look: http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-09-08/news/farmvillains/

The fact Zynga opposed SOPA is no surprise either. With it, they'd be out of business.

Sooner or later this tactic is going to bite Zynga on the ass. They've literally stolen games every design element. They don't produce new content and they've been caught out on this multiple times. Microsoft has gotten in to trouble for far less. And this doesn't fall under parody, fair use or tribute or even sampling it's a straight up rip off. Bad mojo. I'd be ashamed to put these guys on my resume.

This whole controversy enticed me to try out Tiny Tower on iPhone, only to find out that it's basically one of those goddamn disgusting Zynga-esque Cow Clicking games in the first place. You know, one of those games that tells you to either pay real money or not to play it for hours if you want to get anything done?

Sorry, but both devs can go die in a fire for all I care.

Tiny Tower

Tiny Tower dev wishes Zynga luck on clone

NimbleBit Letter to Zynga

Reader Comments (49)

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 10:58AM Doctor Who said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:19AM Jimjamyaha said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:27PM AGuyOnTheInternet said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:59PM Mike DPad said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 4:05PM Ordeith said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:03AM psyXcho said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:07AM vedichymn said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:10AM baby sea tuna said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:16AM psyXcho said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:45AM jsx92 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:17PM MayorMikeHaggar said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:20PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:27PM Dashx747 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 3:41PM lolkeits said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 4:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:07AM baby sea tuna said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:09AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:15AM Rabidmofo said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:27AM pika2000 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:32AM Mujokan said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:28PM AGuyOnTheInternet said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:15AM AllFallD0wn said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:28AM pika2000 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:31AM Softserve said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:50AM SgtSnapp said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:18AM OtaQ said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:19AM j swift said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:35AM baby sea tuna said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:36PM Brando Calrissian said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:24AM OtaQ said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:29AM pika2000 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:31AM Softserve said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:52AM SgtSnapp said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:37AM BoBsS said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:22PM sigma8 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 11:50AM VGJunkie said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 12:44PM JasonA said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:02PM AGuyOnTheInternet said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:23PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:21PM Warlock234 said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:37PM ColorblindMonk said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 1:58PM Cave Johnson said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:02PM ShadowXIII said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 2:19PM peter pham said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 5:30PM TheKbob said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 6:45PM GCountach said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 7:59PM commonperson said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 8:22PM Zolbrod said

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