Zynga slaps back at EA over The Ville, is prepared to go to court

The FarmVIlle house just turned up the heat on the case of Zynga v. EA , or rather The Ville v. The Sims Social. Zynga has publicly released its reply to EA and has filed a counterclaim in San Francisco court in hopes of striking down the storied publisher's argument that Zynga has infringed upon EA's copyrights on The Sims franchise. In short, it's about to go down.

"Today we responded to EA's claims which we believe have no merit," Zynga General Counsel Reggie Davis said in a release. "We also filed a counterclaim which addresses actions by EA we believe to be anticompetitive and unlawful business practices, including legal threats and demands for no-hire agreements. We look forward to getting back to focusing all our efforts on delighting our players."

As part of its copyright infringement suit issued earlier this summer, EA cited numerous press analyses of Zynga's games as proof that its claims had merit. Zynga seems to think that it was all poppycock. Zynga has outright asked the courts to strike that part of EA's argument down entirely, claiming that it serves "no purpose other than to try to portray Zynga in a bad light."

"In sharp contrast to the confined inquiry that single claim requires, EA's Complaint is an unrestrained ramble of immaterial, inflammatory, and prejudicial allegations that have no bearing on the issue at hand," the counterclaim reads. "These allegations are so patently irrelevant to the case that they appear geared more towards inciting the press coverage they generated than contributing to legal analysis. Zynga therefore moves to strike them."

Could Zynga have a point? There's quite a lot of meat (and legalese) to this three-part counterclaim, and we'll have to comb through the rest of it before answering that question. After all, this could very well be the largest copyright battle that either Zynga or EA have ever fought. Who's buying the popcorn?

Are you on the side of EA or Zynga on this one? Which of the two do you like better: The Ville or The Sims Social? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment