The San Francisco City Attorney's office is investigating alleged "illegal marketing tactics" practiced by Zynga to promote
Mafia Wars: Las Vegas with "acts of sidewalk vandalism".
Zynga launched
Las Vegas, an expansion to its popular social game
Mafia Wars, earlier this month, promoting the release with viral campaigns in several cities. Its ads included stickers of fake $25,000 bills on sidewalks, as well as decals of broken windows left on car windshields, each inviting passersby to visit the game's site.
Deputy City Attorney Alex Tse in San Francisco posted a letter yesterday calling the fake money stickers "documented acts of sidewalk vandalism", and describing the ad campaign as "illegal and actionable",
according to a report from SF Weekly blog The Snitch.
"The City Attorney takes violations such as these very seriously, and intends to pursue every available cause of action aggressively against Zynga for these illegal marketing tactics," said Tse. He then asked the
FarmVille studio to provide all information regarding the campaign, identify involved parties, and provide a proposal for a solution.
Despite the controversy, the game seems to have benefited much from Zynga's ads, as more than 10 million players have tried out
Mafia Wars: Las Vegas less than a month since the new city was added (
Mafia Wars currently receives almost 17.7 million monthly active users).
To celebrate that milestone, the developer continued its unorthodox marketing approach by livestreaming Snoop Dogg as he blew up a four-ton armored truck in the middle of the Las Vegas desert last night. So far, the only complaints emerging from the event concern the rapper/actor stepping in front of the camera and
blocking everyone's view just as the vehicle exploded.
