Zynga Apes "Tiny Tower" With Freemium "Dream Heights" Title
January 25, 2012
Zynga's been getting a lot of bad press lately, and the social gaming giant is doing itself no favors with its latest freemium release. Dream Heights, currently being "beta tested" with a limited release on the Canadian App Store, has copied both the style and substance of 2011's iPhone Game of the Year, Tiny Tower.
Tiny Tower developer NimbleBit, reacting to Zynga's blatant (but seemingly penalty-free) IP theft, has released a little "zinga" of their own. Team member Ian Marsh tweeted the following image (tap/click to enlarge or visit the source file here):
While the trademark and copyright laws associated with video games are notoriously difficult to broadly enforce, Apple is in a unique position to do something about these kinds of shenanigans. Says Touch Arcade's Eli Hodapp,
It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Historically speaking, Apple has had a very hands-off approach to even the most blatant of clones on the App Store. But, we are talking their very own game of the year last year that's being mercilessly knocked-off here, by Zynga of all companies. ... The amusing (and sad, to be honest) part of all this is that per another tweet, Zynga once attempted to acquire NimbleBit. If you can't buy 'em, clone 'em?I guess the Clone Wars aren't just science fiction anymore...