He seems so worried about taking someone else's credit, that he's missing the value HE brought to the table. He made the game approachable. The visual style of the game made it more fluid, which made it more approachable. At least to me, the two games he derived his own from don't seem to pull me in the same way. The app has a similar appeal. In games, there's a lot of value in visual design... he got the visual design right.
Visual design is important in games. Novel game mechanics are important in games.
In this case, I think the mechanics were the difficult thing to create. And the mechanics took months to refine.
Looking at the history of Threes -> 1024 -> 2048, I think the business incentive for copying and polishing existing game designs is clearly superior to the business incentive for designing a novel mechanic. Why make a novel mechanic when someone can just copy it? That strategy is too risky.
I think the story of these games is a microcosm for the game industry as a whole. More game sequels are released than original game ideas. And I think that has to do with the incentives we create for game developers.
I think the creator of 2048 has priced his value about right. He knows what he brought to the table, but he thinks his contribution is not the lion's share of what made 2048 special. At the same time, he does not really know how to create a system that values innovative games more highly. And all the while, an opportunity to make a lot of money is whizzing by his head.
One, as original as Threes is it's unfortunately super easy to clone. 2048 being made in a weekend being proof. Yes I know it's not an exact clone. Let's say then it was very easy to make a similar game.
There are plenty of popular games that aren't easy to clone quickly. So I'd argue the lesson there is consider making something hard to clone.
Also, he open sourced the game. That effective says "please clone this". The license effectively implies "feel free to copy this to phonegap and publish it". Which once it was popular people did.
Do you think ease of cloning is the correct metric to optimize?
Put another way, if a game developer thinks this: "This would be a really fun game! But it would be too easy to clone, so I guess I will not make it. I'll do something else." Is that a thought process that you would support?
I think it's reality. Do I like it? I'm mixed on it.
I'm sad that Threes didn't seem to get the attention that it kind of seemed like it deserved. On the other hand I think even if Threes is arguably a better game by some metric most people seem to enjoy 2048 more so 2048 brought something to the table that wasn't there before.
If you think your game is easy to clone, rather than not make it, maybe you should take that into account when releasing it. Maybe Threes should have been free? Maybe knowing it would be easy to remake they should have invested more in getting the word out? Or, maybe as you suggest they should have done something else.
Basically I think it's reality. An easy to clone game has some risks that a non-easy to clone game doesn't. You should take those risks into consideration.
Totally, I don't even have a cellphone let alone a smartphone. 2048 was the only version I played. It got me so interested I even made an awk version. That's what I liked the best, all the creative versions people wrote based on it. Someone on here wrote, 'the only thing more addicting than 2048 is making a 2048 clone.'
I have no idea why you got multiply downvoted. I tried to compensate but doesn't seem to have helped much.
Would certainly love to see your awk implementation. I think I heard of a sed one, so awk would be the next logical progression, may be REBOL too, or its new incarnation Red.
It's long past where I should have just rewritten it in perl, tcl, or python. Running x1k might be a good starting point. You can read in onek what are the keys to press, I redefined them from the vi home keys that the awk script uses by default. Have fun!
Exactly, without his version of 2048 I would have never gone on to try Threes. The aesthetic of 2048 alone prompted me to pursue better looking mobile alternatives than some of the terrible clones in the App Store.
Absolutely. There's always the tendency when doing work like this to not notice when you've made the breakthrough. The inspiration 2048 (without animations) is unplayable, to be honest. There's simply no chance it could have ever succeeded without the touch-ups.
Not all derivative works are strictly bad, in the same sense that copyright infringement (eg, downloading an album on The Pirate Bay to try it out) can be a gateway to purchasing content (albums, concert tickets) a consumer wouldn't have otherwise.
