In an exclusive interview with GamesBeat, 6waves Lolapps (6L) CEO Rex Ng denies breaking a non-disclosure agreement with Spry Fox, developers of Triple Town. Spry Fox claimed last week in a blog post that they've filed suit against 6L, whose game Yeti Town goes beyond even the normal copy-catting that takes place in the games industry.
"We’re not just talking about the game’s basic mechanics here," Spry Fox wrote. "We’re talking about tons of little details, from the language in the tutorial, to many of our UI elements, to the quantities and prices of every single item in the store." We definitely see their point. Furthermore, they claim they were in talks with 6L to publish Triple Town, and divulged tons of in-development information and assets to the company. Hence the allegation that 6L broke their NDA.
Ng's response? “I want to be very clear: this accusation is unjustified and plainly not true. We have not broken the NDA signed between 6L and Spry Fox.”
“Our business development team is focused on growing, and promoting the developer ecosystem, which includes more than 50 independent developers we have partnered with,” he continued. “Our business is based on trust, which we earn and maintain by keeping the highest level of confidentiality.”
Perhaps most damning of all is an email allegedly sent to Spry Fox from 6L's executive director of business development, which read "I need to back out of any further discussions on Triple Town. We’ve just published a game on iOS that you’re not going to like given its similar match-3 style. Wish this wasn’t happening, but it is."
We're interesting to see how this plays out—it could turn out to be an important case for the social games industry, where developers are constantly aping one another's concepts. Do you think Spry Fox's suit is justified? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter.
