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NimbleBit's Ian Marsh offers Zynga 'congratulations' for cloning Tiny Tower with Dream Heights

Co-founder fires back via Twitter

NimbleBit's Ian Marsh offers Zynga 'congratulations' for cloning Tiny Tower with Dream Heights
The launch of Zynga's not-so-subtle Tiny Tower rival – the now already infamous Dream Heights – has understandably fired up NimbleBit's Ian Marsh, causing the co-founder to take on the social gaming giant via Twitter.

His statements, which were accompanied by a series of images to back up his point, were designed to highlight the similarity of the two titles, with Dream Heights – like Tiny Tower before it – charging players with making money and creating jobs by building up a tower floor by floor.

Depressing dream

"We noticed you are about to launch a new iPhone game called Dream Heights. Congratulations!" reads the letter, which was posted via Marsh's Twitter account.

"We wanted to thank all you guys for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year Tiny Tower. Good luck with your game, we are looking forward to inspiring you with our future games."



The Twitter conversation that ensued brought Marsh's brother and fellow NimbleBit founder David into the mix.

"Pretty sad when a company of 2,789 people can't even come up with their own game ideas," added David.

“What a large scale failure of imagination. I don't wish Zynga any ill will, I just think it's depressing for all the devs at Zynga that don't have creative freedom."

His comments were rounded off with the suggestion Zynga had attempted to buy NimbleBit before work on Dream Heights had begun – an allegation that some believe suggest Zynga decided to go its own route when said acquisition failed.

Horrible human beings

Other mobile and social developers have also thrown their hats into the ring.

Among them was Daniel Cook, CCO of Spryfox, who described those who copy and sell the works of others as "horrible human beings."

"It doesn't matter if it is your job. Or if you need the money. Or if some boss told you to do it," Cook said.

"You pushed the pixels that hurt someone."Scantily clad efforts

Zynga has been involved in copyright infringement cases in the past – albeit on the other side of the equation - with Brazilian developer Vostu having lost a preliminary injunction after Zynga claimed the studio had copied its games.

The two parties went on to settle back in December, with Vostu paying Zygna an undisclosed sum as part of the deal.

There's been no suggestion made as of yet that NimbleBit will seek to take legal action against Zynga, however, with its wrath so far confined to social networks.

You can see the open letter in full here.

[source: GamesIndustry.biz]

When Matt was 7 years old he didn't write to Santa like the other little boys and girls. He wrote to Mario. When the rotund plumber replied, Matt's dedication to a life of gaming was established. Like an otaku David Carradine, he wandered the planet until becoming a writer at Pocket Gamer.