"Felicity;c-17257561" wrote:
"BloodValkyrie;c-17256897" wrote:
"Felicity;c-17256603" wrote:
There's always the possibility that EA will sue. They've done it before. Win or lose, they have deep enough pockets to drive out competition that way. I'm hoping they don't do that -- healthy competition is a good thing.
I don't think EA sued the company behind Cities Skylines. You can't legally own a video game genre. That would be like being the only one with the right to write a romance novel. If EA does sue, they'd better somehow prove life simulation isn't a genre and is only possible to make by using the specific, likely copyrighted programming in The Sims instead of original and separate programming. Considering Paralives uses a different engine, that will be difficult for EA.
They sued Zynga over copying the Sims. I'm not going to discuss whether Zynga is a good company (they are not), but when they tried their own life simulator, EA sued. It's possible it was too close -- Zynga is scummy (or was? No clue if they're still in business).
Here's the thing -- they settled the case out of court. No clue who would have won. OTOH, an indie dev would not have the same ability to fight a lawsuit. And builder games are a far wider genre than life simulators so it would be far more difficult to sue over those.
https://kotaku.com/ea-sues-zynga-says-the-ville-rips-off-the-sims-5931661
I saw that Zynga game, it was a clear copy of the Sims, right down to the UI. Zynga has stolen intellectual property so many times, I'd be surprised if that company is still around. There's always someone who tries to make money off of someone else's hard work.
