There’s no love lost between competing social gaming platforms Zynga and Playdom. Earlier this year Zynga sued Playdom over what they called misleading ads. That litigation appears to remain outstanding, but Playdom has since changed their advertising practices.
Now there’s a much more serious dispute between the companies. Yesterday Zynga filed a lawsuit against Playdom and a number of other defendants in California state court. Among the many causes of action: misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, breach of the duty of loyalty, tortious interference with contracts, tortious interference with existing and prospective economic advantage and unfair competition. The defendants include four ex-Zynga, now Playdom employees as well.
What this boils down to: Playdom has allegedly hired away a number of Zynga employees, and those employees have allegedly taken key information and documents from Zynga and have given them to Playdom. Among the most important documents that were supposedly stolen: The Zynga Playbook:
The Zynga Playbook is literally the recipe book that contains Zynga’s “secret sauce,” and its contents would be invaluable to a competitor like Playdom. The Zynga Playbook constitutes a collection in one document of many of the most material non-public commercially valuable concepts, techniques, know-how and best practices for developing successful and distinctive social games. The Playbook is the result of years of testing, development, trial and error, analyzing customer behavior, game behavior, optimizing past successful techniques, and collective know-how that Zynga has spent millions of dollars and more than tens of thousands of man hours developing and devising, and which could only be compiled by developing and deploying successful games over a period of years to millions of them. In the hands of a competitor like Playdom, this document alone creates huge exposure to Zynga as it breaks down in detail and memorializes the company’s key and collective efforts to develop and fit games to the social networking platform in the most successful manner. It is a “how-to” manual that belongs to Zynga.
Zynga accuses Playdom of actively soliciting Zynga employees to turn over proprietary information:
…Playdom recruiter Jennifer Farris emailed Defendant Martha Sapeta, a then-current Zynga employee who owed her undivided loyalty and best efforts to Zynga, with a “small assignment” as part of an upcoming and lengthy recruiting and interview meeting. Playdom instructed Defendant Sapeta to “compare and contrast” the precise Zynga games she was working on to corresponding competing Playdom games. Sapeta was offered “bonus points” if she could “propose a feature in [Playdom's competing] game that [she][thought] whould improve [user] growth.” Playdom even suggested the feature “can be a straight up ripoff from our competitors [i.e., Zynga's] app,” but with the caveat that Sapeta would “still have to explain in detail” how the ripped off features would work in Playdom’s competing game.
Specifically, Zynga accuses an ex-employee of downloading 70 files to a USB storage device two weeks before leaving to join Playdom. Three of the files were proprietary Zynga documents. Another defendant mailed 22 proprietary documents to his personal email account before departing to Playdom. The Zynga Playbook was among them.
The judge granted the request for a temporary restraining order against Playdom and the other defendants. Those defendants are prohibited from destroying any of the files allegedly misappropriated.
Neither company would comment on this story.
The pirates of silicon valley strike again.
This is what happens when your company culture sucks. CEO Pincus is not liked very much by anyone except his dog.
Treat people with dignity and respect and you won’t have this issue so early in the business liefe cycle.
His dog is dead.
They do have a VERY STRONG case in regard to trade secrets, as long as they were treated as such inside Zynga.
This is GREAT! As a recruiter that placed several people at playdom, I know first hand how much Zynga sucks. sometime we would spend all day, just trying to steak Zyngas employees. Everyone hates it. In fact, we just stole their lead flash developer for a full time gig with a different social games company! Oh the fun.
Trying to steak employees? Just buy them a New York striploin and be done with it.
hell yea! I just take them out to dinner, boom they leave Zynga… HaHa. I saw that and couldnt fix it
Ask and ye shall receive! “Zynga’s Playbook” just leaked to the Wall Street Journal this afternoon… the cow manure’s going to hit the fan now!
http://s.wsj.ne...81219183549.jpg
There isn’t a sole lead Flash developer as there are many teams with individual leads… so you’re statement seems a little inflated.
You are right, thats why I didnt say sole. I said lead flash. Trying to be ambiguous for privacy sake. But he was the best one. At least he wasnt one of Pincus’ nut riders like the rest of your communist
You didn’t say “sole” because you had used “steak”, and then you would have had us all thinking of Surf n’ Turf. What does it mean to “steak” an employee anyhow? Please feel free to be as unambiguous as possible, so that myself as well as any nut riders, communists, and all others are clear about this new recruiting lingo.
Of course he was the “best one” that you could get. You made money on him, right!
I’m just waiting for the day that someone leaks this Zynga Playbook online.
There is not much to leak. The book is basically one page that says “Copy other successful games and throw marketing money at them.”.
Jealous much?
Sorry your shit box app never reached 10 dau or you’d know that a large budget is only temporary success and not sustainable.
Zynga’s ability to sustain their growth is impressive, but the parent is right: Zynga got started by copying what they couldn’t buy.
To wit, Mafia Wars is a clone of Mob Wars and Farm Ville is a clone of Farm Town.
It’s there M.O. If you have a successful game on Facebook they’ll copy it, straight up, and then use their leverage to post huge numbers.
They’re very good at it, but the claims in the documents that Zynga wins by “hard work and innovation” are pretty laughable.
“Zynga’s ability to sustain their growth is impressive, but the parent is right: Zynga got started by copying what they couldn’t buy.
To wit, Mafia Wars is a clone of Mob Wars and Farm Ville is a clone of Farm Town.
It’s there M.O. If you have a successful game on Facebook they’ll copy it, straight up, and then use their leverage to post huge numbers.
They’re very good at it, but the claims in the documents that Zynga wins by “hard work and innovation” are pretty laughable.”
——
… and Farm Town, Farm Ville and Country Story are all clones of myFarm. So what’s new? How is this competition any different from the cola wars or the sneaker wars….
EVERYONE copies each other, and in social gaming this isn’t sole the domain of Zynga, just look at all the versions of Vampire, Mafia games, et al. that have come to market. So what’s the differentiating factor? could it be innovation? You just need to look at the app data on the top apps and the top developers on Facebook, Myspace, whereever. Zynga’s contributions are consistently present in the top 20.
But I suppose you would attribute this success to their “leverage” … which is what?… could it be the Product teams and Marketing talent whose “hard work and innovation” make Zynga’s particular iterations of a good idea more sticky with fickle consumers?
But, hey, you are absolutely right…. Farmville’s 40 Million(!) monthly active users on Facebook is pretty laughable… Wow!! I’m sure the Farmville team is on the ground laughing too.
Zynga are thieves. The story of Farmville says it all.
Pincus threatens to fire everyone if they can make a clone in 45 days. What a jackwad.
Why are they thieves? How does Farmville tell us this? I’m just reading the chatter now. From what I can tell, some very careless recruiters at Playdom, and also idiotic ex-Zynga employees put Playdom in an extremely compromising position. Farmville has 40Million monthly users on Facebook?!! Holy crap!! I suppose all those users were stolen away from the competition.
Farmville keeps doing better and seems to have very little marketing by comparison. Plus I have a friend who works for Zynga and he loves it there. Don’t hate because they won’t hire you.
Wasn’t their whole motto “Fast Followers” ? Also, does anyone know where farmville came from? Oh right, Farmtown.
Right on, Pincus.
Zynga’s Playbook:
Find other apps. Copy them. Sue everyone else.
*returns to playing playfish games*
This is gaming EVERYONE steals everyone’s idea’s!
That is the name of the game, seriously, there are very few unique concepts. Take flight control as an example, since the launch earlier this year. Flight Control has seen about 20+ rip offs hit the app store.
People just need to reconcile themselves with that.
BUT stealing doc’s is just the work of dumb shits, it is just too easy to get caught and it is amateur hour.
“Zynga’s Playbook” just leaked to the Wall Street Journal this afternoon… the cow manure’s going to hit the fan now!
http://s.wsj.ne...81219183549.jpg
Honestly Zynga is making over $1m / day just from farmville, why are they even bothering with these petty lawsuits it only tarnishes their reputation?
Seriously. How is this going to affect their future recruiting plans? Would you want accept a job at a company that sued you when you tried to leave?
Are people not reading any of these reports about the Zynga/Playdom lawsuits?
“Why would you want to accept a job at a company that sued you when you tried to leave?”
“Petty lawsuits”
!?!
And who is their right mind would feel comfortable working at a company that did absolutely nothing to protect their IP, secret sauce, playbook, whatever you want to call it. Why can’t every company just share their strategy, product plans, vision, etc., and pay their employees in hugs and kisses. Grow up and get a tad of business sense while your at it.
These lawsuits hardly seem petty, especially when there is clear documentation, by email no less, from Playdom’s recruiter’s explicitly asking their new recruits to “steal’ info. At least from what I’ve been reading here in the Techcrunch report. I would say that it’s Playdom’s rep that is tarnished. Call Pincus what you will, perhaps he does have a personality that isn’t for all, but you can’t deny that he knows how to make money. Zynga is by far one of the fastest growing company’s in (terms of revenue) is the history of the valley. Bad press will always surface from the minority, especially from those who didn’t pass muster and were booted from the gravy train. Personally, I’d like to see Playfish grab some of Playdom and Zynga’s action. Their games have better story line and game play. But then again this is such a huge and nascent industry that there seems to be room for all.
You mean $1M in revenue, how much in profit? That’s one dumb, bloated company, with hardware costs like nobody’s business.
I’ve got Zynga’s playbook right here
http://1.bp.blo...400/copycat.jpg
Zynga is also the worst company to work for in the social game space, game designers beware. It’s not a game company anyways. Unprofessional management, Pincus the chihuahua nipping at everyone’s heels, and a horrible work environment. Pincus and George Bush should have a play date. Maybe they already have?
Who puts their entire companies secret sauce in one word document? If it fits on one document how proprietary can it be?
Also ditto on treating your employees right and not having to worry about this.
Its a shame that it came to this but I’m guessing it might be tough to prove “trade secrets”
If by secret sauce they mean that their games are the same, running on the same code, with minor cosmetic changes, all named ____-Wars, then perhaps needing to write it down says something. Most people have noticed that Shit-Wars and Yawn-Wars are the same boring concept.
Do you really need to write it down?
I’d say they’re both tarnished. Zynga comes off like a tyrant in the social games arena, and Playdom as rip-off artists (which is ironic cause from what i’ve read of zynga in the past, they are the ones that borrow where they please). The whole thing is silly. This space is really interesting right now though, so while these two are having their slapfight, here’s hoping other companies step in and introduce some original ips.
Zynga is a sweatshop, filled with depressed employees badgered by a pocket dictator for new dumb features each week. Their games are pathetic, mostly copies of other people’s games anyway (making Playdom, I guess, stupider – a second derivative). And they are written so horribly with the wrong technologies that they only way they can scale is by throwing more and more hardware at the problem.
Zynga won’t survive, lawsuit or not. They suck.
WOW,
I just read the meaningless babble that is this blog’s commentary.
First of all, half of you know NOTHING about social games, k thx.
Zynga has all the right in the world to sue Playdom. Why? Suing is an economic act, that may have sprinklings of managerial emotion, but is really a business decision.
With that said, let’s think about why Playdom may have a case. If what the employees have committed is illegal, then they have a chance of winning. I don’t know the details so I’m not gonna comment.
Secondly, this ‘playbook’ that you children summarize in 3 steps:
Find other apps. Copy them. Sue everyone else.
LoL. What about viral loops? what about retention testing? what about engagement loops? what about brand marketing? what about cross promotional frequency? neuromarketing studies? relationship with platforms?
Copying is harder then you kids think. Anyone can clone an interface. Very few have the ability to do game balancing.
This is in regards to the vague statement of ‘playdom stealing secrets’, which makes it sound like the company is stealing secrets, whereas its a few employees. The employees could have stolen data and manipulated it so that ethically Playdom isn’t responsible. As far as Zynga’s company culture – it will eventually die.
So, because you have 100+ drones to help you copy/steal/borrow an existing app, actually spend the time balancing it, and then use words like ‘engagement loops’ to describe social interaction methods that are (besides the fancy title) fairly obvious… its ok? Nobody said coping was easy, they just said its kinda low.
And Zynga is original? Which game of theirs is?
So do Game Designers typically involve themselves in producing these methods, or is it actually the product managers?
A few things to note are that the “Playbook” has yet to be determined to be the document containing anything revolutionary pertaining to viral loops, retention, marketing or new platforms.
So far, all that has occurred is Zynga has sued Playdom in an attempt to restrain Playdom’s game designers, which truth be told, Zynga doesn’t make real games, they make viral social apps with a pretty little aesthetic intended to fool people into thinking it’s a game.
Zynga is an app factory and not a very innovative one at that. Ok, not innovative at all.
Mafia Wars was a direct rip off of Mob Wars and Farmville was a direct rip off of Farmtown.
Are you trying to say now that Zynga somehow taught their game designers these “secret” techniques? Why not call a Spade a Spade, Zynga is suing because Mark Pincus likes to stop production on competitors any way he can. It’s a soul less company that prides itself on raising numbers on subpar applications that are only meant to temporarily engage and monetize off the masses. This is not surprising about Pincus. He’s done it before and he’ll do it as long as his stature continues to plague him in the same style of a delusional Bonaparte.
by blog commentary i meant comments on this blog – not michael’s blog. ;D
This is all quite funny. Zynga is suing Playdom over loss of future revenue opportunity? Send an email to their advertising contact at zynga.com. You won’t get a response.
Seems to me Zynga is ignoring their real problems so they can engage in a pissing contest.
Is this some kind of a utilitarian dilemma?
There is nothing ‘obvious’ but proper engagement loops nor is there something obvious about game balancing. There are companies that are good at it (such as asian gaming companies) yet what Zynga is doing is taking advantage of a trendy situation.
Asides from direct payment platforms, there’s no telling how long platforms like Offerpal will be around because they are providing incentivized leads to advertisers.
Does it really matter if Zynga is ‘fooling’ people into thinking something is a game? People should determine themselves what a game is. This isn’t some kind of aesthetic discussion about what is art and what isn’t an art.
It seems like people are boiling this discussion down to a war of innovation. If Marc Pincus will sue, then he will sue. Zynga’s internal issues may be a reflection of Marc’s policies regarding suing, but this is the world we live in.
The reason they make subpar applications is because they are competing on totally different elements than what other companies, who lack a user base, are competing on. Playfish focuses on retention. Zynga focuses on a copycat method. This is because our industry permits this kind of behavior.
None of these are ‘real’ games. in fact, gameplay isn’t that critical of an element when it comes to social games. Ask real social game designers and they will tell you that social gaming is more about ’social’ and games being an extension of self expression and socializing via social networks. Using Facebook/Myspace itself plays a role in the entire ‘engagement loop’, it would be foolish to call this layman knowledge when in fact much time is spent in developing a relationship with platforms and knowing when changes are arising.
Im not defending Zynga but PEOPLE REALIZE THAT FOR CENTURIES EVERYTHING IS A RIP OF SOMETHING ELSE. Do you wear clothes? Do you use furniture? do you think there is tremendous innovation taking place in these industries?
If you think social interactions methods are easy, please email me and give me an idea for an application and a roadmap. You’ll be dumbfounded as to how difficult it is to execute this.
If you actually analyze this commentary, you will see people talking about Zynga being a tyrant (what about other companies that aren’t necessarily direct to consumers and harder to identify as tyrants’ and being soulless.
A comment I can respect is: And they are written so horribly with the wrong technologies that they only way they can scale is by throwing more and more hardware at the problem.
That is a technical issue of scalability and it may be very true. Zynga’s game balancing is probably broken as well.
How old is the social gaming industry? Are there ‘real’ social game developers? Remember that this isn’t a war of subjectivity – original IP’s don’t make you money, knowing user behavior and monetization makes you money. Somehow I also get the feeling this whole talk of ‘tyrants’ is related to the subconscious hatred for ‘large corporations’.
Words without wisdom: Original, innovative, Soulless, Real Games
Things that matter: Company culture, Companies making leaps, Leadership, hardware costs.
how dare you make sense sir!! couldn’t you tell by reading above comments that this is not the place for that…
These applications are social, they are engaging people with media. Yet I find none of the apps can assure me that their art is legitimate after the wake of Castle Age’s mysterious art switcharoo. VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER MEDIA FROM MOVIES TO VIDEO GAMES ROLLS A CREDIT LISTING ACKNOWLEDGING THE ARTISTS PROGRAMMERS AND CONTRIBUTORS IN EVERY FIELD.
The reason is astoundingly stupid. They fear losing all of their employees to competing business, who will offer a more competitive rate of pay. In other words, they don’t want to pay the artist what he is worth.
And the movie industry failed because we know the names of all our favorite stars??? What would baseball be if we did not capitalize on the names of the players?
There is enormous potential for these social apps to develop cult followings of their star artists. To ignore this potential is completely retarded, and illustrates a corporate greed beyond compare.
Acknowledge your artists, and you can only benefit.
As a user, both Playdumb and Zynga SUCK! Don’t waste your real cash in order to get the fake stuff…so not worth it! Playdumb can’t even fix their apps since they are too busy trying to Hoover more players and real cash to support their screw up of apps.
Two greedy, nasty, bastard-filled companies rat-f*cking each other to death. Good for them. Hopefully they both will go bankrupt.
Oh, and for the record, if you actually have played the games concurrently over a period of time, you see that Playdom’s plagiarism is REALLY blatant.