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Were they in any way connected with kingdom of loathing? If not, then their only innovation was integrating kingdom of loathing with nicer graphics and facebook (i.e. not the game mechanics or business model).



No; Kingdom of Loathing is run by Asymmetric Publications (http://asymmetric.net/), which is only a few people: http://asymmetric.net/people.html .

And if Zynga didn't steal game mechanics or the business model from KoL, what did they take? While KoL was an early browser-based game, it certainly wasn't the first (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiplayer_browser_ga...).


Browser is nothing to do with it. KoL's mechanics are exactly those of Mafia Wars and the like (including both the core concept of "energy" and the business model around it).


And those mechanics are exactly like dozens of BBS door games from the 80s and 90s, so...




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