No. I think the reason Zynga is losing players of Mafia Wars to other competing games is because Zynga has horrible customer service.

I have played Mafia Wars for 6 months and there are still bugs that negatively effect gameplay currently in the game that existed when I started. These bugs have been reported countless times by countless players and yet remain.

They continue to add new content which introduces new bugs to the game while ignoring the requests for fixes.

That is why they are losing customers. Not because of some misleading ad. (While I do admit, the misleading ad does not help Zynga's situation.)

These advertisements are the same style advertisements for any product comparing it to another of the same market. Beer commercials, the Pepsi Challenge, the examples are endless. Any players lost to that advertising will either be regained after a trial period or lost to the superior product. I don't see the case.

I think they have a point.. I’m not sure there is much of a case for "lost revenues" but using another brand's name in a hyperlink and not mentioning the product they are actually

I mean if I put an ad that says "like playing (put your game name here)?" but it link to my game instead would definitely upset you if you had a good product that relied on fresh faces..

I'm not saying it's not done before, but it’s usually in a commercial where the consumer can see actual brand.. a sentence offers no identifying distinctions.. I never saw a Pepsi commercial that didn't have the word Pepsi in there somewhere. TV offers visuals.. sound.. text.. those facebook ads are just words.. maybe a non-specific image accompanying it.

I’m sure Zynga will have a tough case as these kind of scenarios are probably untested cases that don’t have much history to fall back on which way the courts would favor. I think it’s a sleazy practice to advertise that way as it relies on the popularity of a rival product to attract people.