Mob Wars litigation (not quite) over
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Did anyone even know there was a legal battle over the game? I just read an article and thought it would be of interest to the people watching this thread. With the magic of copy and paste, I'll just paste it below, but there's a couple links embedded in the story that you have to go to the site to see: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/30/the-mob-wa... The ongoing litigation between Mob Wars creator David Maestri and SGN is over. On December 16 the two sides reached a settlement. The Mob Wars game goes to Maestri, but SGN will have rights to create similar style games itself. SGN also received an undisclosed financial settlement. The history of this powerful little app is dramatic. It was first created by Maestri while still employed at SGN’s former iteration, FreeWebs, under the pseudonym Jason Gilbert. That alone is evidence that the game actually belonged to his employer. Maestri left SGN in February 2008, and SGN sued Maestri for control over the game. For more background, see here (link active on the original news story page). Mob Wars, which is a game that lets players act as criminals and rise through the mob ranks by committing crimes, fighting other players, etc., brings in a lot of money. Players use real currency to buy weapons and other virtual goods on the site. Some estimates suggest revenue may have peaked at $1 million/month, and there are nearly 2.5 million active users of the application on Facebook today. It has also spawned a number of copycats, including Zynga’s Mafia Wars, with 2.7 million active users. Given that the settlement allows SGN to create its own knockoffs without fear of future litigation, suggestion is that Maestri will pursue Zynga and others for intellectual property infringement. |
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Dang, that's a lot of dough. I hope I'm helping people save money here :) But then again, that means FB/MW hate me more. |
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Maybe now that its over we can see some new features to the game. By new features I don't mean one stupid little addition (ignition rigging). I want a butt load of new weapons, jobs but mostly new properties! Bring back London and multiple cities. He has(had) such a great thing going with this game but it looses steam, quickly. New Features! |
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I think he's just getting more greedy. It seems he brought his little brother in to help the game and thats it. But the only changes ive noticed are things that encourage buying of godfather points. I think the game is approaching a dead end, If you and 1 other person were making millions a year on a game that pretty much monitors itself - wouldnt you be wasting that money on living the good life instead of patrolling the discussion boards daily for one maybe 2 good suggestions? They already make 3 games for facebook that bring it buttloads of cash, and now that the litigation is over they can do whatever they like. |
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that site, techcrunch, is having an awards show called the crunchies, and Mob Wars is a nominee for the "best time sink site or application" along with Zivity, Tap Tap Revenge and Texas Hold' Em. http://crunchies2008.techcrunch.com/votes/ What's for sure is this is a big game that makes a lot of money. I hope competition, not litigation, is what shapes this game in the future, since it mentions they might try to sue Zynga and other knockoffs instead of trying to be better. I also got hooked on the myspace "Mafia Wars" by Zynga, and it's better in many ways, but it's on Myspace, which is painful for me to log in to. |
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Facebook has the "Mafia Wars" by Zynga as well I believe... |
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I don't know how it is on facebook. the myspace app is much more dynamic on Myspace. I don't know the technical term for it, but the page doesnt' have to completely reload when you click something, that's nice. I'm scared to start another one anyways through facebook, I spend too much time on these 2 as it is... |
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Well, the guys who wrote that article were psychic, since now it seems Mob Wars guy is suing Zynga regarding their Mafia Wars game. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/14/mob-wars-c... story says Creator David Maestri and his company Psycho Monkey have filed suit against Zynga, a popular developer of social network games. The lawsuit centers on Zynga’s game Mafia Wars - a text-based game very similar to Mob Wars, which has also developed a large following.Seeing how the scrabulous thing went down, I am curious how this one will work out. I guess you were right PC, and Zynga will have to call their lawyers. |