Got an interesting email from EA/Playfish just now. Thought it was just another email reminding me that the game closes in a month, that is until I scrolled down. They’ve unlocked the beta of the new Plants vs Zombies FB game for TSS players! w00t!

So adding to the news earlier about Zynga laying off a lot of people in many of it’s studios, the have announced that they will discontinue The Ville. Looks like another win for EA and Sims Social.

According to The Next Web, the company also announced they would discontinue its clone of EA’s popular The Sims Social game, The Ville, and it may continue laying off employees by shutting down their Boston office in the near future.

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Today, on behalf of Maxis, EA filed a lawsuit against Zynga over their game, The Ville.  I thought it would be useful to draft a post to explain the substance and background of this decision.

The core legal issue is our belief that Zynga infringed copyrights to our game, The Sims Social.  In legal terms, our claim is that Zynga copied the original and distinctive expressive elements of The Sims Social in a clear violation of the U.S. copyright laws.  

The legal reasons are solid.  But for creative teams who feel that their hard work and imaginations have been ripped off, there’s obviously an emotional element too.

When we launched The Sims Social in August 2011, Maxis brought the distinctive universe of our world-renowned franchise, The Sims, to Facebook.  We created a game that allowed players to create Sims that can interact with the Sims of their Facebook friends.  It was an instant hit, gaining tens of millions of users, many of whom continue to play the game after nearly a year since launch.

As outlined in our complaint, when The Ville was introduced in June 2012, the infringement of The Sims Social was unmistakable to those of us at Maxis as well as to players and the industry at large.  The similarities go well beyond any superficial resemblance.  Zynga’s design choices, animations, visual arrangements and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from The Sims Social.  The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable.  Scores of media and bloggers commented on the blatant mimicry.

This is a case of principle.  Maxis isn’t the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product.  But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it.  Infringing a developer’s copyright is not an acceptable practice in game development.  By calling Zynga out on this illegal practice, we hope to have a secondary effect of protecting the rights of other creative studios who don’t have the resources to protect themselves.

I’m certain there will be a response.  Some will say The Ville simply iterates; some will tell us to get over it and move on.  We are confident in our position, and that we will prevail. 

But even if we do not, we will have made a point.

As a longstanding game developer, I know what it feels like to pour your heart and soul into creating something unique and special for your fans to enjoy.  Today, we hope to be taking a stand that helps the industry protect the value of original creative works and those that work tirelessly to create them.

Source: EA News/The Beat

Business Insider has an interesting article on The Sims Social and Playfish. According to them and unnamed sources, EA India is now in charge of The Sims Social. This is supposedly where these games go to die. Also from these guys,failed social games by EA/Playfish used to be sent to their Shanghai studio instead, but they have supposedly been working on SimCity Social for about 2 years. True or false? Who knows for sure.

Electronic Arts has handed the keys to The Sims Social, one of its top social games, over to its Playfish India studio—where social games are sent to be maintained with slight updates until they are discontinued, according to a sources close to the matter. The Sims Social will still get some updates, but the Playfish India team is mostly “just going to keep the lights on,” our source familiar with the plans said.

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Thanks to Sim Secrets for the tip!

Get a FREE SimPhonic Jukebox in The Sims Social. Build this amazing music skill item and have your Sim dancing into the night!

If you have a Littlehaven Shores Beach House, then you’re in luck! One new land expansion is currently available for free of charge in Littlehaven Shores in The Sims Social.

You simply have to tap on your locations tab, travel to Littlehaven Shores, click on any of the ‘For Sale’ signs and unwrap the green and white package to reveal your new 6×6 buildable space.

Ensure you make the right choice – one it’s bought there is no going back! Mwuahahaha!

Source: Sims-Social

What does one do when Restaurant City is not very profitable and one wants to expand the Sims Social user numbers? Why, they terminate Restaurant City on both Facebook and Smart Phones. Then use SimCash to get said players to switch to Sims Social. It’s diabolically delicious! Muahahahaa!!!

Playfish’s Restaurant City was one of the top restaurant simulation games on Facebook in 2009; it maintained that momentum through 2010 after EA acquired the developer. The game recently marked its third birthday on Facebook in April — having shrunk by more than 90% in size from its peak numbers of 5.2 million daily active users and 18 million monthly active users to today’s 310,000 DAU and 1.8 million MAU…

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Source: SimSecrets

Start your Sunday with some FREE BUZZ for The Sims Social!