UPDATED 16:00 EST / NOVEMBER 25 2010

Zynga settles lawsuit with Playdom

Zynga and Playdom reached an agreement following the settlement of the lawsuit filed by Zynga in 2009. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.image

In September 2009, Zynga Game Network Inc. took Playdom and four former Zynga employees to court on grounds of having disclosed trade secrets and business strategy. In June 2010, Zynga again argued in court that Playdom is using Zynga’s ‘Mafia Wars’ advertising in the same way to promote Playdom’s ‘Mobsters’. Before the two parties settled, Zynga had previously won a preliminary injunction.

Zynga’s plans of expanding its new game,  CityVille, via Yahoo, were previously put on hold due to Zynga’s success with Facebook. “Users can now play and share games such as Mafia Wars and Fishville across Yahoo’s homepage, games site, e-mail and messenger system. The new relationship doesn’t affect Zynga’s current set-up with Facebook, which involves millions of faithful gamers.

CityVille has been announced to be the most interactive game ever developed by Zynga, an opportunity through which Yahoo might reclaim its lost dominance in the gaming domain.  At the same time, Yahoo is also launching an improved version of its Sketch-a-Search function and several other functions for Local Offers and Yahoo Messenger.


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