Social Game Maker Digital Chocolate Files Lawsuit Against Zynga [Updated]

TechCrunch is reporting that social games makers Digital Chocolate are filing a lawsuit against Zynga for unspecified reasons. There aren’t any details about the particulars but it is likely related to a patent or a intellectual property matter. We’ve covered Digital Chocolate in depth over the years, and in fact had an in depth interview with founder Trip Hawkins (who was also the founder of Electronic Arts… yes, THAT Electronic Arts). Read on for more details. [Update: Zynga's quote is below]

The question here is what could Digital Chocolate be after from gaming giant Zynga? It’s best to look at DC’s recent history to possibly get a hint. In recent months, Digital Chocolate has been pushing forward with their newest social games platform called NanoStar. It’s a robust platform that emulates classic collectible card games (CCGs) like Magic: The Gathering, but allows players to use their cards across a variety of types of games. For instance, NanoTowns is a SimCity like game that leverages the cards to give you special bonuses and buildings while NanoStar Castles is a desktop defense type of game where you place defensive items on your map using the same set of cards that you carry across games. The idea is excellent, but the games haven’t really taken off with Castles at 380,000 MAU and NanoCity at only 36,000.

So could this be related to some sort of broken deal? Maybe DC and Zynga had a deal relating to DC’s platform at some point?   At this point it is speculation, but we’ll keep you updated as soon as we hear something.

Update: Zynga has responded to the lawsuit as such: “”We are surprised and disappointed by Digital Chocolate’s lawsuit. The timing of the action appears to be opportunistic, and we plan to defend ourselves vigorously.”

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