Zynga New York's general manager Dave Porter has gone on the record about he feels about originality in the video game industry. Specifically, he defends his stance in a blog post on the company's website about comments he made stating the company copies other games.
"What I actually said was that all games are derived from other games, that this has been happening long before Zynga, and that the debate about originality in games is vastly overblown and misses the mark...Before making Draw Something we ran OMGPOP for four years and made lots of games that were inspired by games we loved and we emulated the mechanics from games with great UI. This is no great revelation," Porter explained.
Porter further goes on to say that what makes Zynga so successful is not it's games, but the way the company acts as a service provider.
"I really do believe that Zynga is the best in the world at creating and socializing games, and running the as a service that people love. Ultimately, that is the huge factor in what makes Zynga a sustaining company," he stated.
Zynga was recently in hot water when EA sued the company over similarities between the Zynga game The Ville and The Sims. The case was eventually settled out of court. Zynga is best known for Farmville and Words With Friends (which plays similarly to Scrabble). Other games on the company's roster include Pioneer Trail (which is like The Oregon Trail), Cityville (which is like Monopoly), and Scrabble with Friends (which, you guessed it, manages to be very much like Scrabble and Words With Friends combined).
This lack of originality is pretty grim, but no doubt it has been successful for the company. It may not win over many hardcore gamers, but casual gamers have no such reservations about the company's strategies when it comes to game development.