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Mafia Wars Dev Zynga Sues Playdom Over 'Misappropriation Of Trade Secrets' |
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Written by Vlad
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Friday, 25 September 2009 16:23 |
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| September 10, 2009 |
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Zynga, the social game developer behind Facebook games like Mafia Wars, has filed serious accusations against fellow online game maker Playdom. A judge granted a temporary restraining order against the defendants.
Zynga specifically named Playdom, Inc. and four current Playdom employees, one of which allegedly took Zynga's "playbook" on his final day of employment. This playbook, Zynga's September 9 complaint claimed, contains the company's "secret sauce" that is key to the company's successes. The document took millions of dollars, thousands of man hours, and years to compile, Zynga claims.
The complaint, originally found by TechCrunch, continued with more accusations: "Despite being repeatedly caught engaging in illegal competition against Zynga, Playdom remains undeterred."
"As part of the illegal raiding, threatened misappropriation, and on information and belief, actual misappropriation, Playdom now openly resorted to recruiting Zynga employees in illicit fashions as other means to gain access to Zynga's ideas and concepts."
Zynga alleged that a Playdom recruiter approached then-Zynga employee and defendant in the case to essentially perform recon for Playdom on Zynga titles. Zynga's filing produced a copy of the alleged email between the recruiter and the ex-Zynga employee that asked for comparisons between specific Zynga and Playdom games, also asking for specific in-game numbers like loot payouts and cost of virtual equipment.
Read the entire article at Gamasutra |
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Last Updated on Monday, 28 September 2009 22:46 |
