Mob Wars is a multiplayer role-playing game hosted on the social networking site Facebook. It allows players to engage in Mafia-style wars with one another and has become one of the most lucrative Facebook applications and the first to net USD 1M per month in revenue. However, this number has never been confirmed by the developer or any third parties.
Developed by David Maestri while he worked for Freewebs.com, it was subsequently the subject of an unsuccessful intellectual property lawsuit as Maestri's former employers attempted to claim ownership over the asset. The lawsuit was ultimately settled in December 2008 with the IP for Mob Wars remaining with Maestri but with SGN allowed to develop their own Mafia based role-playing application. In August 2008, Mob Wars had 2.5 million active users. It has spawned several very similar games with nearly identical gameplay and format on both Facebook and MySpace, some of which, such as Zynga's Mafia Wars, were the subject of further lawsuits. Zynga made some changes to Mafia Wars so it wouldn't resemble Mob Wars as closely, but Mob Wars creator David Maestri moved forward with his lawsuit. In September 2009, Maestri and Zynga settled the case for about $7–$9 million, less than the $10 million Maestri had originally demanded.
In 2009 the developers of Mob Wars created a spin-off game called Mob Wars: La Cosa Nostra, which follows a similar format, but awards skill points at a much faster pace than the original game.
Read more about Mob Wars: Gameplay
Famous quotes containing the words mob and/or wars:
“Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I will not by the noise of bloody wars and the dethroning of kings advance you to glory: but by the gentle ways of peace and love.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)