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> The early moves of Pincus were very impressive His early moves were deplorable. He cloned-- pixel by pixel-- emerging games built by small developers, then s
by davycro 12y ago
> The early moves of Pincus were very impressive
His early moves were deplorable. He cloned-- pixel by pixel-- emerging games built by small developers, then seeded them with traffic from other Zynga games.
- golergka 12y agoEveryone did. Developers he stole from stole it from someone else, the whole social game space was a clone war. But Zynga was consistently succesful in it. Do you remember the tower-breaking game on Kongregate and iOS that Angry Birds cloned? Or Backyard Monsters that was the original Clash of Clans?
- freehunter 12y agoCrush the Castle! I used to play that game during classes on my netbook back when WebOS was still a thing. Is it even possible to be nostalgic about something that happened 5 years ago?
- zaguios 12y agoCrush the castle wasn't even the original version of the game. It's actually inspired by another flash game called Castle Clout which almost nobody has heard of. (The developer of Crush the Castle listed the attribution in the first game's description on Armorgame's)
- jonursenbach 12y agoSo because everyone did, that makes it okay?
- weixiyen 12y agoI think the point is -> why is Zynga singled out?
- golergka 12y agoMorality is not the point of the argument. Commenter above said that “original moves were impressive”, and I completely agree with him — HOW Zynga cloned games was really effective, unlike all other competitors on the market.
- GoodIntentions 12y ago>Everyone did. Developers he stole from stole it from someone else Except perhaps the dev with the initial idea? Stealing someone else's idea might be widespread, but it doesn't make it right.
- paulhauggis 12y agoI suppose this goes against the common idea here on HN that the idea doesn't matter and you should share it with everyone, even during the early stages of a startup. Zynga shows me exactly why I don't share my ideas early on: A company with more money and more resources can bring the idea to market much faster than a 1 or 2 person shop. I think the people that keep spreading this idea have the resources and money to 1) create their own ideas quickly and 2) take someone else's idea.
- amirmc 12y agoThey were not ideas. They were working versions. At some point you have to put your ideas/implementation/whatever out into the open (you might even have to advertise its existence). At that point, anyone better resourced than you can probably just mimic your work. What alternative does anyone really have?
- golergka 12y agoThat's the point: every game idea was a clone of a clone of a clone, and on each copying something changed, but not significantly enough to call it a new one. However, the emd results differed from the originals drastically.
- im3w1l 12y agoThat sounds like some kind of intellectual property right that needs to happen.
- cookiecaper 12y agoIf he really cloned games pixel-for-pixel, wouldn't the original authors of those games have a good copyright claim? It'd be hard to fight their lawyers if your case is iffy, but if the violation is as flagrant as you say, I'm sure the aggrieved could find a firm that would want to relieve Zynga of some of that VC money. Even if Zynga made some changes, it's likely the original authors would still be able to make the case that Zynga's product was a derivative work. The fact that this hasn't happened makes me skeptical of such claims. If the copy wasn't close enough to be considered a copyright violation, then what's the problem? Everyone takes inspiration from others. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. There's nothing wrong with deciding you want to compete with someone and making a similar product. Not every idea for a new company or product has to be (or even can be) completely original.
- davycro 12y agoZynga has strong lawyers. They would force small devs to take them to court, if they could afford the legal fees, then settle if they had a strong case. By then Zynga's game went viral and the smaller devs lost their first mover advantage. The SF chronicle wrote a great piece about these tactics a few years ago. The article showed how they cloned FarmVille, then settled with the victim for 11 million (FarmVille would make a billion in rev that year). im on mobile and can't search for the article rn
- cookiecaper 12y agoIt shouldn't be difficult to find someone willing to help you fend off their lawyers if you have a compelling case. Again, if the violation is really this flagrant, the party alleging infringement would be calling the shots and Zynga would give them any reasonable figure to prevent the case from going to trial. Obviously it's not reasonable to hand over a year's worth of revenue.
- NeutronBoy 12y agoIsn't the usual refrain "the idea is useless, it's the execution that matters"? Or does that only apply when it's a startup and not a big evil company?
- srdev 12y agoThat doesn't really apply when the execution is cloned as well. This phrase typically implies that there is a way to make a mark on a product beyond the initial idea. Marketing and leveraging existing user base is not a laudable contribution.
- chatmasta 12y agoI didn't say his execution was a laudable contribution. I said it was impressive. Although if it's true he cloned other companies, why did Zynga beat them in revenue and investment? Clearly something was different with Zynga.
- rhizome 12y agoThey were lucky to get big takeup on one of the properties that they then leveraged into the clones. "Behind every great fortune is a crime," and Pyngus' crimes in user-exploitation and idea-theft are well-documented.
- NeutronBoy 12y agoIf your execution can be so easily cloned, where's the value?