Threes: The Rip-offs and Making Our Original Game

by gkoberger • 12 years ago

556 208 12 years ago

gkoberger2• 12 years ago

Threes is the original game that 2048 (and its clones) are based on. This site starts off a bit slow (talking about 2048), however the hundreds of emails / screenshots showing the progress is insanely awesome. It's a great look into what it's like to build something from scratch.

Spoiler alert: at one point it was a game about argyle socks and monsters (Argoyle).

RaphiePS• 12 years ago

Does anyone have any stats on Threes' sales? I wonder if 2048 has significantly boosted them.

honksillet4• 12 years ago

I would think the opposite is more likely to be true, although I'm betting that Threes was already in is long tail when 2048 was released.

patresi• 12 years ago

The Android version of Threes wasn't even out yet

the_cat_kittles• 12 years ago

I bought threes after hearing about it in the comments of a thread about 2048, I'm sure other people did too

dwaltrip• 12 years ago

I did the same!

aubergene• 12 years ago

Me too, and it's probably only the third app I've ever paid for

Pxl_Buzzard• 12 years ago

What a good look into the process of game design. Tons of communication with team members, lots of pictures and scribbles to explain ideas, and the ever-growing list of tasks that take a prototype to a shipped game. It's amazing to think about the scope and scale of games that AAA studios can deliver at given that all of this has to happen between scores of developers.

bobbles• 12 years ago

I love Threes, and I understand where they're coming from.

But this line "Others rifled off that they thought 2048 was a better game than Threes. That all stung pretty bad. We know Threes is a better game, we spent over a year on it. "

The fact that someone spent less time on a game, and based it on your game, does not make it a WORSE game. It's just unfortunate for you.

Tiktaalik• 12 years ago

Though they explain why Threes is better in the next line. 2048 is "broken" and easy to beat whereas Threes is a deeper, more challenging game. I think they were trying to get across that they know that Threes is a better game because they spent over a year working out the design and ensuring that they didn't make a "broken" game like 2048.

smacktoward2• 12 years ago

But this exposes an underlying assumption in their thinking, which is that a deeper game is automatically a better game. I would argue that this assumption is mistaken, especially on mobile, where people tend to gravitate towards games they can play in short bursts during downtime. In that context "deeper" just means "harder to pick up and get into."

That's an arguable point, of course, but I just mean that it's not as axiomatic as they make it sound that Threes is better just because it's deeper.

smacktoward2• 12 years ago

We know Threes is a better game, we spent over a year on it.

I played Threes, and I liked it. And I feel for these guys having to watch everybody and his brother pile on to the idea they had to work so hard to tease out into reality.

But here is some hard truth: none of that matters.

Nobody cares how hard you had to work to get from idea to product. All they care about is what you have produced at the end of all that work. What makes it better or worse is how it stacks up relative to the competition -- even the competition that is shamelessly riffing off your core ideas -- not how much sweat you put into it.

And I gotta say, having played 2048, 1024 and Threes (the Android versions, at least), I think of the three of them 1024 stands up the best. It takes the core ideas in Threes and sands them down into a game that is easier to grasp and plays faster, without becoming so simple (a la 2048) that it becomes a game a script can beat. Threes makes you swipe-swipe-swipe after every game to get your score and "sign" it (why do I care about signing it?) before you can play again; 1024 just moves you straight on to the next game. Mobile games need to be simple and streamlined, and 1024 understands that imperative better than Threes does.

I say all this to help others understand why I would point to this essay as an example of how not to respond to a problem like a barrage of cloners. It's because this essay sees the world entirely from the developers' perspective -- look how hard we worked! Look how long we labored! Look how subtle our decisions were! -- which is exactly the wrong angle.

You want your communications to speak from the customer's perspective, not from your own. Customers don't give you brownie points for how hard you worked on something. All they care about is how to get the best product for the best price. So if you put your heart and soul into something, and then someone comes along, tweaks your thing and makes it better, the way to respond isn't to ask people to respect how hard you worked; it's to look closely at the new thing, understand why people like it better, and then bring that understanding to your next iteration or your next product.

Gracana• 12 years ago

Nobody cares how hard you had to work to get from idea to product.

That was my initial reaction to that statement as well, but upon reading on I realized that's not the point they're trying to make. They're not saying "respect our efforts," they're saying "we spent a year on designing this to be challenging and replayable," and they go on to provide evidence for their claims of superiority.

gkoberger2• 12 years ago

It's almost a shame they spent so much time talking about 2048; it takes away from the point I gleaned: to make something simple and "obvious" takes a ton of work. I've spent months on designs, and felt bad because the end design was so obvious. "Why didn't I think of that in the first place?"

rjvin2• 12 years ago

Yeah it's more of an insight into the design process than any sort of 'plea'. It should also be noted that for their previous game, Puzzlejuice, they also released all the emails/prototypes/images that documented the process, so it's likely they would have done the same for Threes even if it hadn't been cloned many times over. The response to the clones and rip-offs is just a tacked on part at the beginning because they feel strongly about it.

honksillet4• 12 years ago

Agreed

moron4hire2• 12 years ago

If the game were very superior to the clones, they wouldn't have to explain why. Games are like jokes, in that way.

vacri4• 12 years ago

The trouble is that the essay takes a while getting to that point - up until then it sounds like it might be a little bitter. I was about to skip to the end myself when I ran across the 'change of tone'.

frou_dh2• 12 years ago

Threes makes you swipe-swipe-swipe after every game ... before you can play again

I actually took that de-emphasised retry loop of Threes to be a lovely touch of "humane" game design. A lot of us are probably familiar with an unconscious just-one-more insta-retry reflex, and while that does keep you in a game, there's a fair chance of the conclusion being quitting it on a bleary-eyed low note after your last-last-last-for-real attempt goes worse than your first.

Their little cooldown there struck me as very much designed rather than a lack of knowledge about how mobile games "should be". People making games of Threes quality level are no dummies when it comes to the details.

benched• 12 years ago

I despise UI that gets in my way. It's even worse if it's for my own good.

krallja• 12 years ago

Threes makes you swipe-swipe-swipe after every game to get your score and "sign" it (why do I care about signing it?) before you can play again

At least on iOS, you can choose "Autosign Scores" in the Options.

MBCook19• 12 years ago

That didn't come about until the first patch though. It was a rather large annoyance during the early stages of my 'addiction'.

jagt• 12 years ago

Right. So we're on hackernews celebrating ripoffs and clones.

userbinator2• 12 years ago

Standing on the shoulders of giants. Civilization has always advanced itself in this way.

ctdonath4• 12 years ago

Most products are little different from other products. New products are soon copied if they are "ideas whose time has come".

ijk6• 12 years ago

The big differences between Threes and the followers are nearly invisible at first by get more apparent as you get deeper into the system.

So, while they could probably make the game restarting interface more streamlined, the part where you're playing the game is something subtly deeper that unfortunately doesn't become apparent until you've put some time into it.

Kapura• 12 years ago

I was going to make an extremely similar posting and I agree with you on every point.

I think the largest takeaways on the crazy, viral successes of simple games like 2048 and Flappy Bird is that if the game is designed for the player to lose (at least most of the time) then playing again should be dead simple. If your game is really that addicting, anything between the end of one game and the start of another is an obstacle.

MBCook19• 12 years ago

I disagree with you, but I'm curious about this bit:

I think of the three of them 1024 stands up the best. It takes the core ideas in Threes and sands them down into a game that is easier to grasp and plays faster, without becoming so simple (a la 2048) that it becomes a game a script can beat.

I've never played 1024. Could you explain how it "sands [the ideas] down" and and "is easier to grasp"? I found Threes simple to grasp, and it sounded to me from reading the essay that 1024 actually had more features. I would expect that would make it slower to learn.

Mobile games need to be simple and streamlined

This is certainly true. I've found Threes did a pretty good job of this. My only complaint was the 'signing' process at the end which was fixed with the first patch.

I say all this to help others understand why I would point to this essay as an example of how not to respond to a problem like a barrage of cloners.

I didn't see this post as a "here's why clones suck" thing. I took it as a "here's what it was like for us to make our game". Only the prelude mentions the clones, the rest is just a development log. I'm glad they included that preamble, because I've been curious about their thoughts.

Basically, I didn't see this as a message to customers but a 'here's what game development can be like' post.

Customers don't give you brownie points for how hard you worked on something. All they care about is how to get the best product for the best price.

Ah, but how they measure "best" matters. I adore Three's presentation and I think the polish they put on it was well worth it. I see it as a sign of the amount of work they put into the whole product. I was happy to plunk down $3.

On the other hand 1024 and 2048 look like prototypes to me. Drawing a few colors of boxes and making them move around the screen isn't hard. If 2048 was the only game to exist, they would have a higher barrier to get me to pay $3 as from screenshots (all you get in the app store) it doesn't look like it's worth it.

As a general note, it was clear a lot of thought and time went into Threes, but I'm amazed they had so many different visual designs and concepts along the way. There are at least 2-3x as many as I would have guessed.

I also kind of liked the argyle idea. That was rather neat.

gbhn2• 12 years ago

Specifically, once you've played puzzles of this sort, it is easy to see that the core of the puzzle is that all the tiles move as far as possible on a move. That threes doesn't do this makes it look like the prototype, no matter how much thought went into it.

Threes then seems more like a combination of this concept and a 15 puzzle.

zemo4• 12 years ago

This is an essay from a craftsman to other craftsmen. Your position is not one of a craftsman, it is one of a salesman.

ruswick• 12 years ago

And the consumer doesn't care at all what anyone is.

All they want is a good game, and for many of them that game is 2048...

userbinator2• 12 years ago

it's to look closely at the new thing, understand why people like it better, and then bring that understanding to your next iteration or your next product.

I agree with this, and the "copy, then improve" mindset, along with the customer-centric view, has some great similarities to the "shanzhai" culture in China:

http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/shanzhai-s-role-in...

http://p2pfoundation.net/Shanzhai

http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

On the Internet, I see this same remix philosophy manifest itself very strongly in the creation and propagation of memes.

Quaro2• 12 years ago

So if you put your heart and soul into something, and then someone comes along, tweaks your thing and makes it better, the way to respond isn't to ask people to respect how hard you worked; it's to look closely at the new thing, understand why people like it better, and then bring that understanding to your next iteration or your next product.

It doesn't have be better or even different for a clone to be successful.

Someone copies it exactly and starts making money off it. Or more likely, 100 different people. What's your response to that supposed to be then?

dasil003• 12 years ago

Threes makes you swipe-swipe-swipe after every game to get your score and "sign" it (why do I care about signing it?) before you can play again; 1024 just moves you straight on to the next game. Mobile games need to be simple and streamlined, and 1024 understands that imperative better than Threes does.

This is such facile commentary on the metagame. Any armchair designer can come along and recite a checklist of attributes that any "well-designed" game must satisfy.

But the fact is that gameplay is much more important than metagame and the gameplay of Threes is much better considered. It's a deep game yes, and maybe that's not for everybody, but it doesn't fail as a mobile game. I play it on the tube all the time, and it works fine just to put it away and come back to it.

alttab• 12 years ago

Great way of putting it.

IMO, the original developer's mistake was the "build it and they will come" strategy.

Even if you built the perfect game, the "cloners" hussled more to get people to play their game, and got traction faster.

Just because you build the perfect product, does not mean that people will use it.

We call it "marketing" and "luck"

gress3• 12 years ago

The point is that the work they did led to the clones. Even if the clones are incrementally better they are free riding.

If investments in innovation and design result in returns only for cloners, they will not be made, and we will all suffer.

It is simply false to say 'all they care about is how to get the best product for the best price'. They also care about cool new stuff. Unfortunately, they don't connect the two.

madsushi• 12 years ago

I have been playing Threes for quite some time, so it came as a surprise to me when several commenters on HN assumed that 2048 was the original and Threes was the derivative.

Yacoby• 12 years ago

Their comment that no one has yet to "beat" threes is in my opinion part of the problem. I get a kick out of beating something, having reached some goal (often in competition with someone else). So maybe 2048 is broken. Doesn't detract from my enjoyment of it.

Also knowing other people had "beaten" 2048 initially helped to made it more addictive.

hebleb• 12 years ago

I don't see Threes as a game that has to be beaten. I'm picturing the more classic arcade games like Donkey Kong or Tetris where you want to one up your friends by getting a higher score, and getting addicted until you get that high score

honksillet4• 12 years ago

This is a great read.

As someone who pooped out a low quality clone of Threes for the purpose of teaching myself d3 ( http://www.kongregate.com/games/honkskillet/menage-a-threes ), I can say that there is a mile of difference between the polish of Threes vs 2048.

Also, I agree with the 3's creator when he says that 2048 is essentially broken. I had played 3s before playing 2048. I got 1024 on my first play through, and the middle part of the game was so tedious I resorted to the alternating up, left strategy just so I could advance the game. It's a little weird that a clone of a clone got so much attention.

ijk6• 12 years ago

I think the tipping point was that 2048 was open-source, on github, and had some low-hanging fruit in terms of improvements or variations. Once the simple changes had been exhausted, the momentum was there to sustain attention for more elaborate but mostly still incremental changes. If everyone had to code it from scratch, we would have seen far fewer versions.

I think it's an interesting study in the possibility space of a design, a breadth-first search by the masses vs. the depth-first search by the Threes developers.

steven2012• 12 years ago

I have a friend who works at a successful mobile gaming company (not Zynga). He freely admits that what they do is rip off whatever games are most popular. Period. End of Story.

They even have a SWAT team that will go out and build prototypes in days and launch them on the App store as quickly as possible to get some users. They've even launched games with the exact same name as the popular game in hopes of tricking people into using their version of the game.

The entire thing is despicable to me, but I guess that's just the nature of the gaming industry these days. Most companies are ripping off each other, so true innovation is hard to come by, and isn't really appreciated anymore.

The funny thing is that he also admitted that they have run out of successful games to rip off, so they might actually have to build their own games.

ssully• 12 years ago

I dont think mobile games are entirely indicative of what the gaming industry is. The rampant cloning and wild west nature is kind of a characteristic unique to mobile. Cloning and stuff still happens in other gaming mediums, but it has never seemed to be as bad as it is on mobile.

ctz• 12 years ago

Rampant cloning and 'wild west' exactly describes home computer game development in the eighties. I don't think it's unique to mobile, or a modern phenomena.

vacri4• 12 years ago

Whether or not it's the company your friend is at, King games do the same thing (the Candy Crush stuff). All of the games of theirs I've seen are tweaks of puzzler games that are 20 years old. Throw on lots of shiny graphics and transitions, tweak the edges of the gameplay, and viola! New market killer.

livepreview• 12 years ago

No offense, but it seems to me that researching and subsequently ripping off 20 year-old games is somewhat different than ripping off days-old games already designed for the same interface.

MBCook19• 12 years ago

I was actually rather surprised that it took almost 3 weeks for Threes clones to start showing up. It's not like the app came out of nowhere, it was discussed on Mac and iOS game blogs before release and was featured in the App store almost instantly.

chubot2• 12 years ago

I saw 2048 on HN, but downloaded 1024 because I wanted to play on an iPad rather than a desktop. I like 1024 better than 2048 because it has a little more richness.

Yesterday, I tried to pay and download Threes, but it said it requires iOS 6. I never upgrade my iOS devices after too many screwups from Apple. So not sure if I will ever play Threes.

I don't know much about iOS development, but I wonder why a game which is basically a 4x4 grid doesn't work on every single version of iOS. 1024 works just fine.

jankins• 12 years ago

I wonder why a game which is basically a 4x4 grid doesn't work on every single version of iOS. 1024 works just fine.

It's pretty much an effort vs. payoff thing; the dev environment get nicer each iteration, and iOS < 6 is in a fractional minority.

MBCook19• 12 years ago

Yep. iOS 6 has some nice APIs, iOS 7 is even better.

According to a company called Mixpanel Trends [1], iOS 7.x is currently on 89% of all Apple devices. iOS 6 is just under 10% and iOS 5 and before is under 1.5%.

Since you can't downgrade and devices ship with the latest version, that means that anyone running iOS 5 or iOS 6 is also running an older device with lower performance. If you're doing a resource heavy game it may not even run well on those devices even if you did work to support them.

1. https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_7

austinz• 12 years ago

I built a decently polished open-source clone of 2048 for iOS over a weekend, and from HN's front page it's obvious many could (and did) do the same for a variety of platforms and languages. It's popular to talk about how ideas are cheap and plentiful, and implementation is what really matters. But maybe Threes is an example where the opposite is true: implementation is straightforward, but the ideas, thought, and polish that goes into making the product truly spectacular are the distinguishing factor.

nvader• 12 years ago

Like it’s not ok to feel the way we do some of the time. But we do.

With that in mind, and with all fairness to the creators of Threes for their hard work, as evidenced in the article, I feel put off by their choice of the word 'rip-off'.

I say this as someone who has never played Threes, and never would have, but enjoyed many of the different forks and iterations of 2048.

ghshephard2• 12 years ago

I loved threes, Played it for close to 20-30 hours during winter break. As soon as 2048 came out, I managed to get to 2048 on my second try based on my experience with threes. I play 2048 in my browser whenever I have a spare 5 minutes, and when I'm on the Bus, I still frequently hop into a quick game of Threes.

The mechanics of the two games are very similar, and obviously 2048 is a direct descendent of threes - but I wouldn't go so far to say that one is better than the other.

Threes has claim to originality, and first publication, so significant credit does need to go to Asher Vollmer, Greg Wohlwend and composer Jimmy Hinson of Sirvo for their original invention.

But, Threes does have some "issue" - one is really poor startup times. It's slow enough that I am more likely to play 2048 in my browser, than bother firing up Threes on my iPhone. The piece assignment in threes, is also somewhat less pleasing to my experience than in 2048, for whatever reason.

Also - sometimes you are looking for nice quick fun - I get a nice rush of (finger mashing) 2048 to the 512 stage, and then very, very quickly racing to 2048 instinctively (plus the crush of defeat if I make a flickering mistake and get my pieces out of place).

Threes requires a lot more attention - I can't really play it at full-key-flick-speed - Not every game has to be chess.

If you read through the emails, and design history on the "making of" - it really, really emphasizes how damn hard it is to build that original kernel of genius. And then the piling on of all the clones/knockoffs/descendants shows how trivial it is for others to stand on the shoulders of genius.

One challenge of the AppStore (and obviously the Android stores, and simply by definition the Web) - is that there is no real way to "reward" the original developers for their many months of hard work, when others can simply clone, tweak the artwork and mechanics (or in the case of Zynga, just the artwork) - and release and market their own duplicate of a game after someone else has done all the hard work.

But, sometimes this opportunity to reinvent is good - I've tried a lot of podcast apps - because I listen to podcasts for about 4-6 hours/day, and, while "Cast" is my current preferred App, I'm looking forward to what Marco does with Overcast. I would have hated it if we couldn't have lots of diversity in that marketplace. (And I would have shot myself if I had to use Apple's (original, horrible) "reel-reel" podcast player).

Another approach though are apps like Vesper - It's "another" notepad app - but the developers (Q Branch's John Gruber, Brent Simmons, and Dave Wiskus), took months and months to polish and refine till it creates a totally different notepad experience (and, in my opinion, the best one on the iPhone) - isn't it good that they had the opportunity to build something in the notepad category, in a different way?

All in all though, I hope that Sirvo's Asher Vollmer, Greg Wohlwend and Jimmy Hinson get the credit they deserve for building the "first of".

MBCook19• 12 years ago

But, Threes does have some "issue" - one is really poor startup times. It's slow enough that I am more likely to play 2048 in my browser, than bother firing up Threes on my iPhone. The piece assignment in threes, is also somewhat less pleasing to my experience than in 2048, for whatever reason.

I'll admit that still puzzles me. I'm not sure what Threes is doing but it does seem to take an inordinately long amount of time.

Adding a 'loading' spinner just emphasized that I was being forced to wait.

It's actually effected my playing. If I go to open Threes and it pops straight up (it was still in memory) I'll play a quick game. But often if I get that 'startup screen' I'll immediately exit the app and do something else like check Twitter or Safari.

mdorazio• 12 years ago

From the post, it looks like they used Unity to build the game, which as an engine is rather overkill for a 2d puzzler. The loading times are probably tied to this.

ijk6• 12 years ago

I think part of the issue is that they let it try and run on hardware where it really shouldn't, given the performance issues it seems to have on older iOS releases. (I don't know about current iOS releases, since I haven't tried Threes on them yet.)

evan_3• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what Threes is doing but it does seem to take an inordinately long amount of time.

They've blamed it on Game Center in the past.

MrScruff• 12 years ago

Very good point. It had one of the slowest app startup times on my iPhone 4 which for a conceptually simple tile puzzler that you play on the train is pretty bad.

eropple2• 12 years ago

One challenge of the AppStore (and obviously the Android stores, and simply by definition the Web) - is that there is no real way to "reward" the original developers for their many months of hard work, when others can simply clone, tweak the artwork and mechanics (or in the case of Zynga, just the artwork) - and release and market their own duplicate of a game after someone else has done all the hard work.

There certainly are ways. But it involves building involved games that are more than the distillation of one trick. I'm confident that we'll do well with our RPG on mobile in part because Zynga will literally never copy the game I'm working on and Kemco--the biggest purveyor of RPGs on handhelds--just plain makes worse games than what we'd actually allow out the door (that whole "professional pride" thing, I'd rather release nothing than release a bad game).

I like Threes. It has a really neat core conceit and I enjoy playing it. But another word for "core conceit" is "gimmick", and most gimmicks are hard to make exclusive.

ghshephard2• 12 years ago

I probably should have differentiated between "Simple Games around a particular mechanic" and "Rich Environments or Game Engines."

The Simple Games around a particular mechanic can, as I've now learned, take many months to develop, and polish until they get to that nugget of experience. But, once that nugget has been published - it's tempting for others to rip off the mechanic. Tetris, Farmville, Candy Crush, PacMan, etc.. all fall into this field with threes.

devanti• 12 years ago

nice, but simplicity is the key to mainstream

baddox• 12 years ago

We wanted players to be able to play Threes over many months, if not years. We both beat 2048 on our first tries.

I was addicted to Threes when I first got it. I played dozens of games per session, and multiple sessions per day. So it was definitely addictive. But, as it turned out, I only played Threes for about as many days. The flame that burns brightest burns out the soonest, I suppose.

2muchcoffeeman• 12 years ago

I play Threes less often now too, but when I want to play something (eg waiting at the bus stop), I crack open Threes.

It's a super well polished game that you can play with 1 hand.

MBCook19• 12 years ago

My play has gone down too, but for me it's because I seem to have hit a plateau. I managed to get a 768 once a few weeks ago, but haven't been close. Most of my recent scores have been 8-9k when my highscore is over 20k. It's kind of discouraging that I can't get near my score again.

mgiannopoulos• 12 years ago

Having seen their games ripped off and cloned dozens of times within a few weeks, the developers of popular iOS/Android game Threes could be responding with lawsuits and anger.

Instead, they are expressing grief (having been accused of cloning the... clones), understanding of how ideas evolve and an awesome release of 45,000 words of internal discussions, sketches, prototype designs of their work of 14 months to get to release.

If you're interested in game design, this is pure gold.

boiler_up800• 12 years ago

Putting aside my feelings on the morality of it all, this really is a fascinating look into the design process that goes into these games and software in general. These posts also show the human side of the design process; how the team responds when one member leaves or returns, what happens to the product, etc. In my short time working on software (and especially UI) with others, I've had many of these same conversations and issues come up.

WildUtah• 12 years ago

This is a shamefully non-responsive web page design for a company that builds mobile apps. The sidebar is set to cover the main text even with my page width set to almost 1000 px wide. Even worse, the sidebar is a fixed position and on top element that I can't scroll away from or out from under.

I expect better web design from the team behind Threes, which I bought and liked.

powera• 12 years ago

From the very end - these guys sound REALLY bitter:

"""If you read this whole thing. Thank you. Wow. If you scrolled down here and skimmed it or just wanted to see if there was a prize at the end, well, you're here. It's about the journey, man.

Hopefully this post points to what we're getting at when we say that making these tiny games is littered with hard and painful times that are full of uncertainty and self-doubt. You never know if something is really going to work. It's not easy. But cloning or ripping off a design in a week, that's a bit different isn't it?"""

MBCook19• 12 years ago

Things weren't that bad this time, but they've been seriously bitten in the past. As (one of them) got close to releasing their game Ridiculous Fishing last year, a competitor quickly cloned it and beat them to the app store and got a high ranking. They nearly canned the game because of a ripoff.

Truth is, the app store is a pretty scummy market.

bagels• 12 years ago

How did it get cloned before it was on the app store?

nashashmi• 12 years ago

Okay, Okay. I get the crying from the threes developers and all, but there is a key difference between why 2048 did phenomenally well and threes didn't.

2048 is a game that was HACKED together and displayed on HACKER news and made open source for the sole purpose of independent HACKING, and indie creativity.

In fact, 2048 has got to be the best case study of how HACKING went viral, not so much about how the game went viral, even if that is what theoretically happened.

From that perspective, the THREEs game is just collateral damage and not really what matters here. The Threes game's developers in effect are all crying about how people are misusing their ideas, copying all the wrong details, and not copying what is the true flattery of the game in the first place. And they wrote a blog post to brag about it all! But little do they understand that people (hackers) take what they like and leave the rest.

waterfowl• 12 years ago

To be fair Threes! has been at the top of app store charts, so I wouldn't say it didn't succeed at returning on investment.

srik12343• 12 years ago

ROI is not the complete issue here. The fact is 2048 is a clone(or inspiration) of Threes. 2048 is gaining more popularity and some people think that it is a better game. Also, the originality lines are getting blurred.

dfan• 12 years ago

Threes did pretty well too.

weixiyen• 12 years ago

2048 was free. Threes wasn't. That's literally the only reason it has more downloads. Threes was #1 on top paid for a long time.

Aldo_MX• 12 years ago

This is literally the point that makes me get upset: Cloning a game, because specific people doesn't agree with decisions taken by the developers (features, pricing, etc.).

Is it really that hard to let indie projects have a chance?

hoilogoi• 12 years ago

I just looked at 1024 on Google Play, and I have to say it would really sting to work on Threes for a year then read that "If you played 2048 in Hacker News, That [sic] you should know this is the original one."

MBCook19• 12 years ago

Have you seen the original description for 1024 on the app store? I see they've updated it to be less tasteless, but luckily the internet never forgets:

"No need to pay for ThreesGames. This is a simple and fun gift for you, and it’s free."

prezjordan• 12 years ago

I felt the same sentiment when 2048 first landed. I was shocked at how no one had really heard of Threes!

Then the developer put "Gameplay similar to Threes" or something like that on the page. I thought it was a nice gesture.

But, overall, I felt for the Threes developers. I'm glad to see this posted to HN.

DanBC5• 12 years ago

I had heard of Threes! but only I was only vaguely aware of it as "a good game".

1024 and 2048 and the others caused me to buy Threes! so the clones get them at least one sale.

shdon• 12 years ago

Same here. Although the games do operate on similar concepts, the differences are enough to make the gameplay quite distinct. Threes is undoubtably the better game. And getting hooked on 2048 made me buy Threes. The people who are amenable to buying paid apps won't be deterred by having a free, inferior, alternative and if the knowledge is out there, it could actually increase sales.

zanny• 12 years ago

All that Threes should really ask is that if you make a derivative you put a link somewhere in the description pointing back to the parent, like "Inspiration derived from 1024 / Threes".

GuiA• 12 years ago

Having a foot in the indie game developer community and another in startups, it's fascinating to see the HN comments in response to this post.

The indie game developers care about originality, passion, the sweat and hard months of work, the dedication to the craft. I think the point of Asher's essay is to show how much love and effort went into it, and that they were indeed the first to ship a full, polished game with that concept. That's where their pride and satisfaction comes from.

The startup people care about end user experience, how good the PR is, and ultimately how numbers matter more than everything else.

I don't think there's a wrong or right vision - it's two very different communities.

Indie game devs dream of making amazing games with other talented, inspiring people - and as long as they make enough money to live not too uncomfortably, they're fine. Their biggest dream is to receive an IGF award and see their game on Steam. Maybe make enough money to be able to start a studio with a bunch of their friends, but definitely not to "scale" to EA-size.

Startup people dream of growing their company to Facebook size, making billions of dollars, scaling, and being on Techcrunch.

It's two very different communities, and it's fun to see the two worlds collide.

Addendum: if you feel like this post is vindictive, bitter, etc.- remember: the best way to interpret a view different than yours is to understand that there is a worldview in which those statements are perfectly coherent, logical, and meaningful. Asher, Greg, and all the other people mentioned in this post are successful, highly respected members of the indie game dev community - not a bunch of guys who are angry for whatever silly reason.

zemo4• 12 years ago

craftsmanship is not lean.

jmduke• 12 years ago

Man, I really like this comment.

And I realize that sentence alone is pretty pointless, so I'll expand on it a little:

One of the huge sources of cognitive dissonance I have in HN and startups in general (and this is coming from someone who is explicitly not a startup/SV person, though I find it a great spectator sport and a wonderful font of knowledge) is the clash of lean against polish. I felt like I've spent the majority of my life indoctrinated to believe that polish above all else is valuable: to spend hour after hour poring over iteration after iteration, to settle with nothing except perfection. This manifests in a few ways: Pixar, for example, calls it something along the lines of 'dusting under the cabinets': making sure each aspect of each scene is absolutely pristine.

And then there's sort of the 'great is the enemy of good' / 'fail fast' / etc line of thinking: get something out the door, optimize for value over time, focus on efficacy. Which has seemingly become trendier than ever -- partly because it clearly works, and because of the undeniable numbers that people rarely buy goods and services because of, say, the fonts -- but an annoying little part of me cringes when I see a new service that doesn't even bother to customize the default Bootstrap theme.

Most times, Ii's hard for me to reconcile these two seemingly distinct philosophies because they seem at so odds with each other. I'm beginning to suspect that the truth lies somewhere in the middle: that there's a time and a place for prioritizing growth and validation above everything, and that there's a time and a place for prioritizing perfection over everything.

Threes succeeded because of a relentless pursuit of quality -- and because of an addicting core concept that arose from that pursuit.

2048 succeeded because it of its price and accessibility, because it was easily hackable, and because it could spread like wildfire. (But then, it also succeeded because of Threes.)

DanBC5• 12 years ago

They shipped the first version. They then decide to ise the term "rip offs" - even though people developing one of the first very popular rip offs claim to have never seen Threes!

MBCook19• 12 years ago

Are you referring to 2048?

They said they were based on 1024, and 1024 explicitly launched with an app store description along the lines of "Why waste your money on Threes, we're free".

EDIT: Found the quote. Surprise surprise it's no longer in their description.

"No need to pay for ThreesGames. This is a simple and fun gift for you, and it’s free."

pom• 12 years ago

If you are referring to 2048, that’s because it was ripping off 1024, not Threes.

DanBC5• 12 years ago

Currently my most downvoted post, even though it is factually accurate and contains no opinion.

m3mnoch4• 12 years ago

technically speaking?

as a fellow dev with feet traditionally in both worlds (indie and startup), i can heartily say "meh" about both the rant and its the whole "ripoff" thing. you are absolutely correct about the indie guys being different from startup guys by wanting:

1) enough money to keep doing what they love.

2) recognition for what they do.

the threes guys? in the ios app store, their app was in the top 100 grossing list for a month and are still top 300. they've ranked #1 in downloads in 28 countries. and they're still crushing it on downloads.

http://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/779157948/rank-history/...

the 1024 guys? their downloads suck. their ratings are a full point worse. they're only lifting to the top 100 in countries that traditionally don't monetize worth beans anyway.

http://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/823499224/rank-history/...

yeah.

i choose data over ranty "you hurt my feelings" stuff every time. and, based on said hard, objective data, the threes guys are doing just fine.

*edit - i missed that last '0' on their top grossing stat. whoops.

forrestthewoods• 12 years ago

2048 is the #1 free app

http://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/840919914/rank-history/...

JamesBaxter• 12 years ago

Would it not be fair to say that because 1024 is free it's taking sales away from Threes? They might be doing fine, maybe they deserve to do better.

vidarh• 12 years ago

and that they were indeed the first to ship a full, polished game with that concept.

For their very specific take on it, maybe. The concept of "slam blocks into each other to combine them into something new" is many years old. I first ran into it as an example of a game written in Haxe years and years ago.

zyx321• 12 years ago

It's two very different communities, and it's fun to see the two worlds collide.

...except sometimes, the collision is a horrible trainwreck like the recent Occulus controversy, which suddenly makes a whole lot more sense in the context of your post.

thedudemabry• 12 years ago

I completely agree. To borrow a common refrain among my group of coworkers: presume goodwill. It's amazing to see the interactions of a group of very effective developers feeling out the finished product as they venture into interesting territory. I'm incredible happy that they posted this!

jtfrench• 12 years ago

As someone who has done plenty of indie game development, I understand their gripes, but also I know this is the "Game" we're playing here — anyone who makes any form of success should expect to be cloned. Period. So think about that from the get-go and come to peace with it in your strategy/set expectations accordingly. The second I put any app out there I assume it's out in the general "mindspace" and will probably manifest somewhere in another form at some point or another. The speed at which it manifests usually correlates to the popularity of the idea.

wudf• 12 years ago

I probably would have purchased Threes if it weren't for the clones. Loved the process documentation. All I can say is keep up the good work. Fuck the haters.

frade33• 12 years ago

I do not recall being addictive to any iOS game, except for Threes.

cintiapersona• 12 years ago

There is even an Atari 2600 port of the 2048 game!

http://javatari.org/games/2048

Amazing...

voltagex_• 12 years ago

On Android, 2048 is 0.7mb. Threes is nearly 30! Surely that factors into some people's decisions.

damon_c• 12 years ago

Wow. That's more than 20 floppies!

MBCook19• 12 years ago

Do you normally check the size of games?

I wouldn't even think to check that. At 30mb, Threes isn't that big (Retina assets and all). I would certainly understand your point if it was 300, but that doesn't seem excessive.

I can only think of a single game I've run into on my iPhone that surprised me with it's size. I'm not sure what it was (maybe an old version of Scrabble?), but it was a word game that was hundred of megs and didn't have much in the way of graphics.

wtracy• 12 years ago

Well, my device has just over 40Mb of internal storage. So, unless the app allows you to install to an SD card, it matters a lot!

srik12343• 12 years ago

Interesting. I never checked size of games unless there is a warning that I cant download more than 50mb over cellular. Only factors for me are ratings & price.

kgabis• 12 years ago

Threes is ridiculously heavyweight. It takes half a minute to load which is funny considering it's graphics. And sometimes it's muted so i have to restart it...

nicolethenerd• 12 years ago

Threes shouldn't be knocking their 'rip-offs', they generated a ton of publicity for the original game. Without playing 2048, I probably never would have heard of Threes.

paulgerhardt• 12 years ago

Threes is a significantly deeper game than 2048 - see for instance this thread on reverse engineering the gameplay mechanics: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=3133680&postcou...

This is something the developers are known for. Greg's earlier game, Ridiculous Fishing, not only had it's own internal Twitter app ("Byrdr") with it's own ARG mini-game - including a fake website with SQL injection vulnerabilities and a voicemail hacking sidequest.

gagege3• 12 years ago

Ridiculous fishing is a piece of video game art. It's really blows all of it's clones out of the water (pardon the pun). You can't clone talent and polish.

aye• 12 years ago

Who's the "Johnny" mentioned in a couple of the emails? Another game developer?

clarky073• 12 years ago

Rip-offs are sad, but the fact that you spent 14 months doesn't make it a better game. It means you took too long to make it. Threes is a great game that has done well, but the vast vast majority of mobile apps don't make enough money to justify spending 14 months on. I really hope that wasn't full time work.

Also, time/effort/money spent developing a game does not make it better or worse than other games. Some dead simple things are awesome, and some things that took forever aren't. Again, I have and like Threes quite a bit, but the time it took to make doesn't make it better than anything else. I haven't played the knockoffs, but if they are doing well I suspect they are decent games in their own right.

srik12343• 12 years ago

Inventing a new game is a creative exercise. I see it like writing a book. iPhone development took years. This reminds me of all the evidence that is pouring from Apple these days on the conference rooms, sketches, mockups etc.

clarky073• 12 years ago

I agree, but comparing an app to the iPhone seems a bit silly to me. This "ripoff" was apparently done in a few weeks and is currently #1 free app in the store. While obviously the original is going to take longer, I'm not sure it has to take 30x longer. And if it really does have to take 30x longer, that's probably a good sign that it's a terrible business model and you should only do this in your spare time as a hobby.

Frankly, the ripoffs are getting the original more exposure, and are probably helping their sales.

evan_3• 12 years ago

Please tell us, what is the correct amount of time to spend writing a game?

clarky073• 12 years ago

I'd suggest not spending so much time that you'd have to basically hit the lottery to not lose money on it. There is no "correct" amount of time, but the odds of losing money is really really high when you spend 14 months on an iPhone game. They happen to hit that lottery and so they are doing well, but the odds were not in their favor.

Take a look at your expected payout and budget your time and money accordingly. I know the app store is like a lottery, but you can make it so that your default is closer to break even with a lottery ticket, instead of default of losing tons of money with a possible lottery ticket.

notoes• 12 years ago

PopCap have a good approach to cloning. It's basically, we love seeing clones because we enjoy seeing good games made, it increases the market size and the bad ones will sink anyway. They're confident in their ability to make really game games that will sell. They're sitting on one of the most cloned games of all time, but still manage to make good games and make money.

People seem to get stuck on the idea that a good game is good because of it's mechanic. Therefore if someone uses your mechanic, you're stuffed. A mechanic is only part of what makes a game really good. It's a similar mistake to having a feature focus in a product company.

It has been fun to see all the riffing off the Threes concept over the past couple of weeks. And I'm sure Asher Vollmer and team will benefit from it all. There is more interest in all the games, they'll have extra ideas from the clones that come out, they find out for free some ideas that don't work. It will help them raise the bar on Threes and make it a better, more successful game.

tylerritchie• 12 years ago

This is interesting, I don't particularly like the tone, but I would love to see a graph of (even relative) app downloads with the release of 1024 and announcement of 2048 (and all the various forks) on it.

I bet there's an effect there.

I bet it's in Three's favor.

And I bet any freshman-level stats student could rigorously show it.

javajosh• 12 years ago

I rarely buy apps, but I bought Threes. I would hope that anyone who's played and enjoyed 1024, 2048 or the myriad knock-offs would at least go and buy a copy of the app. It's a great little game and totally worth $2 (indeed, I'd say it's on par with the quality and playability of the early Nintendo "Game Watch" devices, and that's very high praise BTW. IIRC they retailed for around $25 in the 80's, so Threes is actually underpriced.)

Threes invented a wonderful game mechanic, and I'm reminded of the amazing indie games particularly on Kongregate. It's really something special to see all the creativity and joy that a great computer game can create.

My advice to the Threes inventors would be: rise above the imitators. Indeed, see them for what they are, gestures of respect (with the exception of 1024, who's makers are just assholes). One concrete step I'd take if I were you is to request that the web knock-offs in particular at the very least mention and/or link back to Threes (perhaps an iTunes link[1]).

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/threes!/id779157948?mt=8

thought_alarm2• 12 years ago

The worst part about this is that neither the 1024 or 2048 developers do so much as acknowledge Threes as the original inspiration. It's really pathetic. Just some losers pretending to be something they're not. Common shithead piracy.

simoncion2• 12 years ago

You've let your vitriol get in the way of fact-checking.

Found at the bottom of http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/ :

"Created by <a href=http://gabrielecirulli.com/>Gabriele Cirulli.</a> Based on <a href=https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1024!/id823499224>1024 by Veewo Studio</a> and conceptually similar to <a href=http://asherv.com/threes/>Threes by Asher Vollmer.</a>"

[Please ignore the idiot URLifier.]

thought_alarm2• 12 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20140310210707/http://gabrieleci...

andypants• 12 years ago

2048 has always credited 1024, and 1024 has always credited Threes.

nicpottier2• 12 years ago

What the wha?

Give me a break, this same diatribe could be spouted by anybody who has built anything of significance. Yes, if you build something great, people will copy it, just as your precious snowflake was inspired by others as well. This isn't anything unique to gaming, it isn't anything unique to 3s, it is an immovable fact of life.

Are people copying the product we've poured the last 18 months into? Damn right they are, and if we don't do a better job of executing then we will rightfully get buried.

The gaming industry in general is incredibly derivative, it is the modus operandi. I ran a gaming studio for a while and you bet we did our share of "being inspired" as well as our share of "inspiring others". It is just a fact of life.

I think the thing that gets my goat here is the waxing on that 2048 is a worse game because it is easier and all the people who played that just don't "get" the careful 14 months of planning that went into 3s.

Let's get something straight here, 3s is a great mobile game, but it is just that, a mobile game for playing at bus stops. And the one and only measure of success there is how much fun people have playing it.

Flappy Bird is stupid, but it is also entertaining for no real reason. Chess on the other hand, is rather smart, and also entertaining. Both have their place. And yes, we can cry about how society is going down the drain and only appreciates dumbed down games, but 3s is pretty simple so let's not throw stones shall we?

Phew, ok, who needs a coffee?

evan_3• 12 years ago

Not sure if you've ever played it- it sounds like you maybe have not- but Flappy Bird is punishingly difficult, a fact which is commonly cited as part of its appeal.

nicpottier2• 12 years ago

No, I have played it far too much, high score of 111.

My point was just that the dynamic is simple, stupidly simple, but that doesn't make it unfun.

mxfh• 12 years ago

How original can a game be? The first thing I thought back when I first heard of threes was that it looks and plays like a radically streamlined-for-mobile-adult-market version of Triple Town. While partly understand the proud and grief those devs have, I consider those guys comparably well off, at least almost everyone is giving them credit and 1024 et al. are still nowhere in blatant rip-off territory as for example the myriad of Flappy Bird clones.

diziet• 12 years ago

The problem (for the developers) with Threes is that it cost $1.99 to buy. If they made the app free and monetized with ads/iaps (ie, how all major apps monetize), they would have a much more successful app.

Quaro2• 12 years ago

That was a lot more article than I expected from the title. Wow.

huhtenberg• 12 years ago

They are in a tight spot.

This is one of the most simple, elegant and original game ideas of recent times. One of those that make you wonder how has no one managed to stumble on it before. It is inevitable it got copied.

The reason why it got copied and why 1024/2048 got really popular is that they have overdone the original. The interface is just too funky, there's fluff, fluff and decoration. Rubbery UI makes you feel like you are fighting with the app every time you use it. There are also those smileys on tiles too. So what you have is an idea that looks more complicated than needed (with 1s and 2s being special) and the execution that looks cluttered. That's just asking for a simpler clone - exactly what they got in 1024 and 2048.

Now they have an unenviable task of trying to convince players that added complexity in their version is by design. That or try and slim down the game for faster pace (and perhaps add "basic" mode that mimics clones' simpler mechanics).

baxrob• 12 years ago

I may be alone on this, but I have difficulty distinguishing OP's argument from http://www.amazon.com/The-Quickening-Todays-Trends-Tomorrows...

pawelkomarnicki2• 12 years ago

I tried to install Threes on Android, no ART support => I don't care anymore, playing 2048 and the clones :)

jbverschoor• 12 years ago

I had tried threes.. But I didn't like it. I do like 2048

zachinglis• 12 years ago

The original devs really care and that's lovely. I've always felt guilty about playing 2048 despite having bought Threes twice (once on Android and once on iOS.)

I don't know what I'd do in their position; feeling disheartened is definitely one. It's a great game - granted I'm not a fan of the sound design so get frustrated sometimes - the game itself is fun and addictive.

I don't think this post will convince as many people as they think to switch to the original, but I hope it does them some good.

erikb• 12 years ago

This is my very personal opinion on the matter:

It really pisses me off always I read from somebody how he got burned by a rip-off. If you do it right 2048 will make YOU famous and all future products of you will automatically get more attention, even if you don't make any money on Threes (which is a way worse name than 2048 in the eyes of hackers, btw). Talk to blogs, Youtube reviewers and to us HN users and show us how awesome your product is and if it is really better than 2048 then you will automatically win the crowd. Think about how much attention (and money) PSY now gets for everything he does, although he didn't get as much money directly from Gangnam Style as he could have gotten.

Just complaining and hoping that people will support you because it would be fair is cheap, sad, and it won't happen anyway.

mistercow• 12 years ago

When an automated script that alternates pressing up and right and left every hundreth time can beat the game, then well, that's broken.

Except that it won't beat the game. You're lucky to get to a 256 block with that strategy.

brianmtully• 12 years ago

Original Game? Ever play Triple Town?

dgreensp3• 12 years ago

My instinct is to side with the Threes devs on this, but someone has to say it: It sounds like they spent a year on the cute little faces. Original Tetris didn't do that. Also, I'm pretty sure Tetris was cloned immediately, at least privately, by pretty much any programmer with spare time who played it (because it's fun and easy to implement, like the Threes mechanic).

Is it a good thing that Threes is so hard it's like pushing a rock uphill, until you inevitably can't keep it up and it comes crashing down on you? If someone invented the 15 Puzzle today (the one where you slide the tiles around in a 4x4 grid), for example, but dressed it up and tweaked it so you couldn't beat it, people would probably start having fun with the possible version on the side.

abimaelmartell• 12 years ago

I made this list with some of the variants of 2048

http://abimaelmartell.com/2048-showcase/

drewry• 12 years ago

It's not all bad for them, I found out about threes because of 2048 and came to the conclusion myself that threes was a better game and decided to pay for it.

petercooper• 12 years ago

Lots of discussion already but I wanted to throw "patents" out there as that's what it made me think of first. You can patent game mechanics to protect them (to a certain extent). Is it possible to be against patents (as many geeks seem to be) while also being against people ripping off game mechanics? If so, how?

RogerL• 12 years ago

I came in here post this point. I recognize HN isn't a single human, but the popular positions are somewhat incoherent.

It is exactly this that the patent system is designed to solve. You spend all your hard work, time, and money developing something, and somebody swoops in and appropriates it. If you don't want to be able to protect ideas, this sort of thing is going to happen. It's a tradeoff.

david_otoole• 12 years ago

Don't slave for months producing easily replicable ideas in a market that is mobbed with people who replicate anything successful within days.

ajpiano• 12 years ago

I think it's worth noting the timing of this post, which is that it came out a day after this article on the LA Times tech blog: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-2048-hit...

The article, without even so much as mentioning Threes, credited Cirulli with designing 2048 over a weekend, which rather blatantly missed the point that it was only possible to put together 2048 in a weekend in a world where Threes and then 1024 already existed. The article has since been corrected/updated, but I saw Asher tweet about it, and I imagine that their choice to put together this essay is meant to provide a comprehensive counterpoint to that school of thought.

babesh• 12 years ago

Anyone notice parallels to the software patents debate?

Threes: The Rip-offs and Making Our Original Game

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