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The Internet Is Serious Business

Zynga and Disney Settle “Secret Sauce” Lawsuit

by Susana Polo | 12:55 pm, November 28th, 2010

Did you know that Zynga, makers of Farmville, sued Disney Entertainment more than a year ago?  You see, Disney had just acquired one of Zynga’s competitors Playdom.  Playdom, according to Zynga, had been poaching ex-Zynga employees and had even gotten a hold of Zynga’s “playbook,” a guide to the company’s – ahem – “secret sauce.”

Strange but catchy euphemisms aside, here’s what Zynga says the book actually contained:

The Playbook is the result of years of testing, development, trial and error, analysing customer behaviour, game behaviour, optimising past successful techniques, and collective know-how that Zynga has spent millions of dollars and more than tens of thousands of man hours developing and devising…

In the hands of a competitor like Playdom, this document alone creates huge exposure to Zynga as it breaks down in detail and memorialises the company’s key and collective efforts to develop and fit games to the social networking platform in the most successful manner. It is a ‘how-to’ manual that belongs to Zynga.

S0, right.  It teaches you to Zynga like Zynga.

Zynga sued, Playdom made sure that every one knew that it had “no interest in Zynga’s “Playbook” or “secret sauce,”" not that there’s anything wrong with that, and now the case has been settled… but with no firm details on who it was settled for.

Although Zynga seems pretty chipper about the whole thing.  From their statement:

Zynga is extremely pleased with the final resolution of its trade secret suit against Playdom and various individuals. The settlement reflects the very serious nature of the conduct involved, as reflected by the preliminary injunction, restraining orders, and contempt order issued by the Santa Clara Superior Court.

We have great respect for Disney and are thankful that following its acquisition of Playdom, Disney resolved the matter to our satisfaction.

Sounds a lot like Zynga’s gamble on the new giant parent company having the means to settle without too much thought paid off.

(Edge Magazine via Kotaku.)

  • Capri

    Wow, just when I thought Zynga couldn’t get any more irritating and corny. “secret sauce?” Is that what they’re calling their user-collecting giant chain letter racket? “Sauce” really? And I blocked every viral pest app on FB including Zynga’s so-called games when my account was still working. Chain letters are always in competition to grab and get the most number of users spreading them. Other companies should get their own ideas and stop copying Zynga’s viral junk scheme anyway. Who needs another Farm/Fish/Pet/Mafia/Cafe Wars/Ville/World? When you take away all the funky pretty virtual collectable junk and settings, all those games are just one big chain game really. The only difference between Farmville and Mafia Wars is the setting, one’s on a farm, the other a city, you collect animals in Farmville, you collect weapons and body-counts in Mafia wars. All that aside, what’s so great about them? Users collect virtual junk, users get to post their virtual junk game statuses, collect more points to get more junk, send invites to other users to earn more points and level up, and the statuses are a form of advertising for the game, and man are they annoying to see in the news feed. “would you like some sauce with that?” NO! Get it outa here!

  • acidsprinkles

    farmville is a crapy game

  • Capri

    Zynga isn’t even the first to make this type of game. Before Farmville, there was Farmtown. Before that, there were the notorious Zombie/Werewolf/Vampire/Pirate etc. applications. Also the annoying gifting applications “Send candies!” “Send roses!” “Send cute kittens!” and a zillion other themed gifting apps. These were very short on fun, and long on virtual pie-in-the-sky promises. You’d add the app, thinking there’d be a vast variety of virtual gifts to choose from, only to find that about 80% of them were off limits “locked” and that you had to send yourself stupid, cluttering other people’s profiles and news feeds with the same two or three gifts over and over until you leveled up and were allowed two more choices. Zynga games and those like them are a combination of the gifting apps and the vampires/zombies/etc. apps.


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