Creators of Threes hit out at 2048 for being a clone

LONDON — It took only one weekend for a 19-year-old Italian web designer to create 2048, a simple puzzle game that was first released as a browser game early last month and has since become a cultural phenomenon, following Flappy Bird into the annals of flash-in-the-pan gaming hits.

But 2048 is a clone — in fact, a clone of a clone of a clone — and the makers of Threes, the game on which the original clone is based, have finally spoken out in a blog post about being ripped off, saying: “Threes is the reason 2048 exists.”

“We do believe imitation is the greatest form of flattery but, ideally, the imitation happens after we’ve had time to descend slowly from the peak — not the moment we plant the flag,” said Mr Asher Vollmer and Mr Greg Wohlwend.

“Even writing this feels like we’re whining about some sour grapes that we have no business feeling sour about. Like it’s not okay to feel the way we do some of the time. But we do.”

The trail from Threes, which was released on the iOS App Store on Jan 23, to 2048 was mostly public. First, on Feb 27, was an iOS game called 1024, which copies Threes’ aesthetic and gameplay but simplifies some of the more complex elements of the game, making it easier in the process. More importantly, it undercut the original’s £1.49 (S$3.12) price tag by offering the game free to users.

Until late last month, the game’s description on the App Store even began with “no need to pay for Threes!”. It was also the first Threes clone available on Android devices.

2048 is mostly a clone of 1024 — a fact still acknowledged on the former’s GitHub page, where the code behind it is stored — but it is also “based on” another earlier game, also called 2048. When he shared it on Hacker News, 2048 developer Gabriele Cirulli said he created the second 2048 “to add animations to the (first 2048), which was a bit hard to play without them”.

He also said he had never heard of Threes, describing his game as “probably the last of a long chain of clones”.

Mr Cirulli’s 2048 is an open-source project, meaning that anyone can use the code behind it to build their own versions of 2048. Despite a warning, added after it had achieved success, that “this site is the official version of 2048 … all other apps or sites are derivatives or fakes, and should be used with caution”, other versions of the game have had their own success — perhaps even more than Mr Cirulli’s.

An iPhone clone, which claims to have been “inspired by” Mr Cirulli’s version, has been on the top 10 list since it was released in the middle of last month.

Viral media site Us Vs Th3m has also created a 2048-maker, allowing users to quickly clone the game themselves, while several other developers have merged the game with other archetypes to create Flappy 2048, which combines the aesthetics of the block puzzle game with the gameplay of Flappy Bird — all of which are overshadowing the developers of Threes.

While 2048 was created in only one weekend, this happened only because its creators built on work that Threes developers had taken more than a year to put together. Mr Vollmer and Mr Wohlwend have released a mountain of material that showed the development process they had gone through to build the game.

“Been in a bunch of airports this past week. Seen people playing 2048 in all of them. This is frustrating,” Mr Vollmer tweeted recently.

Ms Leigh Alexander, Editor-at-large of gaming industry site Gamasutra, described what is happening to Threes as “a unique tragedy”. But she cautioned against making Mr Cirulli a villain figure.

“I Googled and realised Cirulli is just 19 years old, a web developer, one of countless digital tinkers who experiment with content often and in public … Young and thoughtless … This is going to happen and this is going to keep happening.” THE GUARDIAN