The suit that Electronic Arts brought against Zynga accusing the company of copying its The Sims Social game -- as well as Zynga's counter-claim that EA CEO John Riccitiello illegally prevented his employees from being hired away from Zynga -- have both been dismissed.
It appears that the companies have reached an out-of-court agreement, though exactly what that is will remain undisclosed.
An official statement we received from Zynga after an inquiry simply reads that "EA and Zynga have resolved their respective claims and have reached a settlement of their litigation in the Northern District of California." We understand that EA is issuing the same statement, but we have yet to hear back from the company after an inquiry this morning.
According to this morning's Northern District of California court filing, all claims and counterclaims by both sides "are dismissed with prejudice," meaning they can not be revisited ever again. Both sides will also pay their own legal fees.
While we don't know any specifics, we have heard from one source familiar with the matter that Zynga is "pleased" with the nature of the settlement.
The problem is that neither party is making any money from these games anymore. They have failed to establish a valuable franchise on FB so no point in keeping this litigation open. Also there was the poaching issue which could have opened a can of worm for both because it was in potential breach of state labor laws.
