Zynga sues ex-Cityville GM Alan Patmore

Zynga has launched a suit against ex-Cityville general manager Alan Patmore accusing him of stealing company secrets.

Patmore was one of more than a dozen executives to leave the troubled company in recent months, and joined Kixeye as product VP in August.

According to court documents provided by Gamasutra, Zynga claims that on the day before and day of his departure, Patmore copied more than 760 confidential files to a Dropbox folder.

Patmore then deleted the Dropbox program and files from his office computer.

Dropbox is a personal storage service that allows remote access to files via any device authorized by the account holder.

Zynga claims the files contained confidential revenue information, monetization data, employee compensation and performance data, and even the design documentation for several unreleased titles.

Though Zynga hints strongly at the involvment of Kixeye in these events, and says the company has "publicly expressed animus" towards its larger rival, it is clear that the strategy game maker wants no part of the legal fight.

“Kixeye has nothing to do with the suit," a company spokesperson told All Things Digital.

"Unfortunately, this appears to be Zynga’s new employee retention strategy: Suing former employees to scare current employees into staying. They’ve clearly exhausted other options in their employee retention playbook.”