Zynga's controversial new mobile game, Dream Heights, is now available for iOS devices.
The tower sim gained notoriety well before launch as back in January, the announcement of Dream Heights kicked off another round of the "cloning vs. inspiration" discussion that seems endemic to the social and mobile development space. Zynga faced accusations of blatantly duplicating the very popular iOS game Tiny Tower.
Even Zynga's official announcement has had to give at least a glancing mention to the discussion and backlash, framing selling points around the "distinct features" Dream Heights includes, and adding:
Like many classic games, tower-themed games have been around for years, and we're truly huge fans of the existing games that have preceded Dream Heights. We're committed to making our games as fun and social as possible, and we hope to "build" (pun intended!) on the tower genre by making Dream Heights the most social tower game yet.
We've previously reported on Zynga's defense against accusations that their games are developed through cloning instead of creativity.
Dreamin' Big with Dream Heights [Zynga company blog]