EA sues Zynga for copyright infringement

[dux]

Not sure if trolling.

A job is not just a job.

Not when you work for the devil.

If you got a wife and kids to feed, mortgage on the house etc, then sure. Get a job, any job would do. Except at Zynga. Zynga is just detrimental to the whole industry as a whole and if you have any long term plans of being a games developer then you shouldn't support them by trying to work there.

[Skjalg]

Not trolling, but I can totally see why you'd think that. Its a bit of an extreme opinion, I know.

I just don't think anything good will come out of working for Zynga except a pay check at the end of the month. So if you cared in the slightest about games and the industry you wouldn't work for them. They copy games and sell them for their own benefit. Its a horrible practice that needs to stop. Our very own mapcorian indie rock stars even felt how it was to be ripped off by Zynga with tiny tower. If they hadn't handled it so well as they did by being smug about it and spreading awareness on reddit they would most likely be fucked right now.

It will probably look bad on your resume once you get fired as well. (and you will get fired eventually as they have no interest in your brain, just your ability to copy games, and copying something is really cheap. So keeping staff on for several years is not a good idea to them, as people with years experience will demand more salary) Any affiliation with Zynga on your resume is just not gonna look good to future employers that have a brain as it makes it clear that you makes bad decisions and don't give a shit about who you work for and what you do.

Edited October 30, 2012 by Skjalg

[FrieChamp]

Except when you work for Kixeye or any other f2p developer for that matter (even though they might deny it). In that case they will welcome you with open arms for all the inside knowledge that you'll bring. Some of Zynga's studios copy games - yes, but Zynga is good at more than just that.

[Skjalg]

Inside knowledge about what, exactly? If you hire someone hoping they will share inside knowledge about how to copy games the best then you are not much better than Zynga I think.

[FrieChamp]

No, I mean all the tricks that engage social gamers and make them spend money. They've been developing their own data mining technology for many years and I'd love to take a look at it. Blatantly copying someone else's game on the other hand is despicable and should have legal consequences.

[Skjalg]

I highly doubt that regular employees knows much about the data mining they did, Theres probably just a few select programmers who knew how and what got mined.

[FrieChamp]

There is the technical side and the insights that result from the mining. I'm pretty sure the game designers have access to this knowledge, because otherwise - what's the point?

[Izuno]

Well, looks like this settled:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-02-15-ea-and-zynga-settle-copyright-infringement-lawsuit

[Thrik]

And there go 520 employees and a $32m loss for this quarter of the year alone. Shieeeeet.

http://www.joystiq.c...osures-layoffs/

[Mazy]

It's pretty fucking crazy, just 1 1/2 year ago this would've seemed fairly unlikely (back when there was all the talk about Zynga being worth more than EA etc.). Guess they scaled up too fast and had too many eggs in their single Farmville basket.

[Minos]

Can't say that I'm surprised, it was clear Zynga was doomed the day they went public.

[Vilham]

It's pretty fucking crazy, just 1 1/2 year ago this would've seemed fairly unlikely (back when there was all the talk about Zynga being worth more than EA etc.). Guess they scaled up too fast and had too many eggs in their single Farmville basket.

This was always a bubble. Seemed fairly obvious to me.

[Mazy]

Well, I was always doubting its longevity, but I didn't expect it to burst quite this quickly.

[FrieChamp]

They say that they cut these jobs as part of their ongoing transition to mobile yet they close down OMGPOP and everyone on the Farmville 2 team keeps their jobs

[Hipshot]

I do agree, you pretty much waited for this to happen.

"None of us ever expected to face a day like today, especially when so much of our culture has been about growth,"

Maybe they thought about that growth too much? It's probably bad to expand to fast even if one product is ace, It's not like mojang has 6000 employees. Rovio have angrybirds, but that seems more solid than farmville.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Hipshot