Tiny Tower is one of the cutest and most successful iPhone games around. So, naturally, someone is shamelessly ripping it off. Only, the company doing the ripping off isn’t some shady Chinese or Russian company. It’s social gaming powerhouse Zynga.
Zynga’s new game Dream Heights isn’t a homage to NimbleBit’s game. It’s almost a clone, lifting not just the overall premise but much of Tiny Tower’s core mechanics as well.
It’s so close, in fact, that NimbleBit’s Ian Marsh put together the image below and posted it to Twitter. Presumably with white knuckles.
Zynga Shamelessly Rips Off ‘Tiny Tower’ With Canadian Release of ‘Dream Heights’ [Touch Arcade]
It actually surprises you that Zynga is copying someone?
Also how does 'notcied' get ignored?
He was probably pretty pissed off when he wrote it by the sounds of things.
I really hate blatant plagiarism on the app store. Tiny Tower is great, and Zynga will profit from it. Just wish TT didn't chew up so much battery power, which is why I deleted it. That, and it becomes super tedious after a while.
I would love to know legally what can happen here. I'd love to see Zynga get taken to the cleaners over this, and set a precedent for all the other scum on the app store to get sued. I am over clones bleeding the life out of the brilliant minds at some of these indie studio.s
It's one thing being inspired by other games (no doubt Tiny Towers has some Sim Tower influence to it) but this is just blatant copying. The sad thing is NimbleBit won't really have much legal recourse and even if they did Zynga can probably throw more money at it than them. I'd really like to see some community backlash against this sort of behaviour.
Unfortunately, the gaming community has no willpower, as shown in this: http://i.imgur.com/abXW9.png
Probably a MW:2 clan, either way why needlessly hate on a game because it's popular?
You're no better than the people you believe yourself higher than.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4OIF7pROmHM/TInKbpk1LVI/AAAAAAAAA80/NtyvBPoUQSE/s1600/500x_zynga2.jpg
Enough said.
Yeah I did a case study on this guy in uni. He's such a douchebag. Every other zynga game has been done the same way, it's nothing new.
and people keep buying his games :(
correction: people keep playing his games and generating ad revenue for his unoriginal ass
I was going to ask if someone knew where to find that quote, you champion! Zynga is insulting, i wonder if anyone has enough money to take them too court. They thoroughly deserve it.
Ehhh yeah it's shitty to come out and say it, but everyone does it - they're driving that bottom line and I guess it's a terrible thing to be focused on but it's the truth. Ah well. I guess Zynga are at the top for a reason.
I'm proud to say I have never played a Zynga game. Not a single one.
To be fair, the original game was done by Maxis way back when..
Actually, it was developed by Yoot Saito and only published by Maxis.
I haven't played TinyTower so I don't know how diferent it is, but this does feel a little bit like a pot calling the kettle black situation.
It's not that similar at all... Using a similar premise for a game "build a tower" or even "elevator simulator" (the original purpose of Yoot Saito's application) is fine... its the 1 to 1 copy with different graphics/text that Zynga is doing that is disgusting.
That said; I imagine people would be cheering if an indie gamer did this exact same thing to some game made by Activision selling for $20 on the iPhone or something.
Sorry, meant to say that its not that similar to Sim Tower (beside the basic premise).
Not really. They have a similar premise, but they're vastly different games to play.
Playfish also had Hotel City as well which seemed like a similar premise.
Everyone who is against this, vote it down on the app store, people won't buy a 1 star game.
(I haven't used the app store for a long time, ignore me if you have to purchase it to rate)
Unfortunately you have to "purchase" the app to comment. So, while it is free, it defeats the purpose to boost Zynga's "sales", for want if a better word late on a public holiday eve, just to write a negative comment. Wow, that was a long sentence....
inb4 Gameloft reference