Triple Town developer Spry Fox and social mobile developer 6waves have reached a settlement over their legal battle from earlier this year, in which Spry Fox accused 6waves of cloning its hit match-three puzzler.
Spry Fox originally filed its lawsuit in January, and claimed that 6waves' iOS title Yeti Town was a "blatant copy of Triple Town." The studio also claimed that it had spoken to 6waves about publishing Triple Town, though those negotiations allegedly stopped on the day of Yeti Town's release. Spry Fox released its own iOS version of Triple Town mere weeks after that game's debut.
The terms of the recent settlement have not been disclosed, though attorney Jack C. Schecter told GamePolitics that he expects Yeti Town to vanish from the iOS app store.
[Update: While the full terms of the settlement are confidential, Spry Fox CEO David Edery revealed to Gamasutra that 6waves has transferred ownership of its Yeti Town IP to the studio. "We are very happy with the outcome and glad to be finished with this matter," he added.]
Part of the purpose behind many settlements is to keep the terms quiet so that neither party has to admit any kind of defeat in public. It lets them avoid negative press and keep costs down.
I doubt it's common, but the way I'd imagine it is that since 6waves (allegedly and most probably) had access to Triple Town during its development as a potential publisher while they were "creating" Yeti Town, the court figured that Spry Fox had done the work developing it and deserved the rights to their creation.
I'm extremely happy to hear this, reading how affected Spry Fox was when this whole problem exploded, coming to a resolution where they feel comfortable is a great achievement for justice in the industry. Here's hoping we don't see those types of cases hurt small developers (or any developer for that matter).
So, it's possible we'll never find out!
At least, it is good to see that Spry Fox got something satisfying out of this.
Not a bad opportunity for poetic justice right?