Voodoo wins Plagiarism trial from hyper-casual publisher Rollic Games

Voodoo has won in court over competitors from Rollic, which are owned by Zynga. The French publisher accused the company of plagiarism and now hopes that this case will set a precedent in the field of hyper-casual games.Voodoo sued after Hero Games studio released an update for the Wood Shop game (Rollic is the publisher).

According to the French company, the new mechanics completely copy similar ones from their Woodturning title. These include sanding and painting wood, as well as using real objects instead of abstract figures.

The Financial Times reported that the Paris court sided with Voodoo and ordered Rollic and Hero Games:

• to pay €125 thousand as compensation for financial and reputational damages;remove Wood Shop from Google Play and App Store;
• publish information about the court’s decision in three newspapers or magazines of your choice Voodoo.
• Leftward:

 Woodturning (Voodoo game); on the right: Wood Shop (Hero Games game)At the same time, financial compensation is far from the main thing that Voodoo is fighting for.

The company wants this case to serve as a lesson for other studios and affect the industry as a whole. “The court’s decision sets a precedent, especially in the field of copying hyper—casual games,” said Alexander Shea, head of Voodoo publishing.

Nassim Ameli-Jouffroy, the company’s legal consultant, agrees with this. According to her, Voodoo almost every day has to send notifications about the removal of games that copy their projects.

Now the hyper-casual games market is rapidly developing, which also leads to increased competition. At the same time, simplicity and high development speeds generate a large number of clones. “99% of studios hate copies. But the remaining 1% spoils everything for excellent developers on the market,” Alexander Shi believes.

Now Voodoo is one of the leading publishers of hyper-casual games. After Tencent acquired a minority stake in the company, it was valued at $1.4 billion (this made it the first “unicorn” in this sector).

According to Shi, Voodoo is actively working to combat existing and potential clones. A victory in court over a major competitor in the person of Rollic (last month Zynga bought the company for $168 million) could be an important step in this direction.

Also on the topic:

• Voodoo invested in Istanbul studio Fabrika GamesAppMagic: the most downloaded and highest-grossing mobile games of August 2020
• Top 25 most successful Hypercausal Publishers — Q1 2020
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