Threes! - A Tale of Two Clones
After reading the story of Threes!, you almost have to feel bad for its developers. After working on their game for over a year, they were eclipsed by a simple clone after just one month. The free and paid versions of Threes! combined have about 40,000 downloads on the Google Play Store, while just one (of dozens, if not more) version of 2048 has over one million. It quickly got to the point where, as is mentioned in the article, people thought Threes! was actually a clone of 2048. This is obviously an unfavorable situation for any game developer. But the question is, what could have been done to prevent it?
As it turns out, software, and software concepts, are actually copyrightable. I personally am not a fan of this practice, but that doesn't make it any less legal. But, even if the Threes! developers had actually copyrighted their idea, would it have made a difference? 2048 is not an exact clone of Threes!, even if it is strikingly similar. The graphics, numbers (obviously), and gameplay are all actually different in each. In Threes!, one swipe moves tiles only one space across the screen, while in 2048 they move as far as they can. Would a copyright for simply swiping numbers across a screen hold up? To my knowledge, Apple has tried to protect similarly vague gestures through patents, but I'm unsure if they've actually been able to prosecute anyone for infringement.
So, if the Threes! developers couldn't stop the clones, should they have been stopped by their own ethics? While the developer of 1024 actively encouraged people to download his game instead of Threes!, it's actually hard for me to fault Gabriele Cirulli, the developer behind what I would call the "de-facto" version of 2048. He created the game in just 10 days, as a personal project, basically just to see if he could. He states in the game's GitHub that he made the game "just for fun." As a software engineer myself, I know how valuable it is to have a project like that in your GitHub, and copying an existing project is a really good way to challenge yourself. But still, his project directly contributed to less people hearing about Threes!, and to smaller profits for its developers.
In my own personal opinion, it's really not cool (or, as they kids may say, "unethical") to clone a game less than a month after it's been released. But I'm not sure exactly where I'd place a cutoff for it to be okay, because I think in some situations cloning is acceptable, and arguably even a good thing. For example, if a game studio were to make a near-exact clone of, say, F-Zero GX, or Burnout 3, but with fancy, modern graphics, I, and presumably, the rest of the world, would pay them boatloads of money to play it (hint, hint.) In those cases, I think that would it be acceptable because those franchises have both been stagnant for over a decade. And I think it might be good for the industry because, assuming they sold well, it would show the original game's developers and the rest of the industry that there's still an audience for those types of games. In short, I would say it's more acceptable to clone a game after it's stopped being a primary source of income for its developers.
As far as ethics for players go, it's an even tougher call. I'd venture to say the majority of 2048 players had never even heard of Threes! (and, interestingly, neither had Gabriele Cirulli), so I definitely don't think those players did anything ethically wrong. But were players who did know of it in the wrong? Threes! was a paid game, and 2048 was a similar game available for free. While many have said that free-to-play games have destroyed the mobile gaming landscape, I think it's difficult to fault players when so many developers are willing to make free games. Even if a player did know about Threes!, it's not as is if they were pirating the game by playing 2048. They were simply enjoying a similar product, at no cost to them. And I think that's okay. That said, I highly encourage anyone reading this to check out Threes!, which is still available, and actually does offer a free-to-play version now.
As it turns out, software, and software concepts, are actually copyrightable. I personally am not a fan of this practice, but that doesn't make it any less legal. But, even if the Threes! developers had actually copyrighted their idea, would it have made a difference? 2048 is not an exact clone of Threes!, even if it is strikingly similar. The graphics, numbers (obviously), and gameplay are all actually different in each. In Threes!, one swipe moves tiles only one space across the screen, while in 2048 they move as far as they can. Would a copyright for simply swiping numbers across a screen hold up? To my knowledge, Apple has tried to protect similarly vague gestures through patents, but I'm unsure if they've actually been able to prosecute anyone for infringement.
So, if the Threes! developers couldn't stop the clones, should they have been stopped by their own ethics? While the developer of 1024 actively encouraged people to download his game instead of Threes!, it's actually hard for me to fault Gabriele Cirulli, the developer behind what I would call the "de-facto" version of 2048. He created the game in just 10 days, as a personal project, basically just to see if he could. He states in the game's GitHub that he made the game "just for fun." As a software engineer myself, I know how valuable it is to have a project like that in your GitHub, and copying an existing project is a really good way to challenge yourself. But still, his project directly contributed to less people hearing about Threes!, and to smaller profits for its developers.
In my own personal opinion, it's really not cool (or, as they kids may say, "unethical") to clone a game less than a month after it's been released. But I'm not sure exactly where I'd place a cutoff for it to be okay, because I think in some situations cloning is acceptable, and arguably even a good thing. For example, if a game studio were to make a near-exact clone of, say, F-Zero GX, or Burnout 3, but with fancy, modern graphics, I, and presumably, the rest of the world, would pay them boatloads of money to play it (hint, hint.) In those cases, I think that would it be acceptable because those franchises have both been stagnant for over a decade. And I think it might be good for the industry because, assuming they sold well, it would show the original game's developers and the rest of the industry that there's still an audience for those types of games. In short, I would say it's more acceptable to clone a game after it's stopped being a primary source of income for its developers.
As far as ethics for players go, it's an even tougher call. I'd venture to say the majority of 2048 players had never even heard of Threes! (and, interestingly, neither had Gabriele Cirulli), so I definitely don't think those players did anything ethically wrong. But were players who did know of it in the wrong? Threes! was a paid game, and 2048 was a similar game available for free. While many have said that free-to-play games have destroyed the mobile gaming landscape, I think it's difficult to fault players when so many developers are willing to make free games. Even if a player did know about Threes!, it's not as is if they were pirating the game by playing 2048. They were simply enjoying a similar product, at no cost to them. And I think that's okay. That said, I highly encourage anyone reading this to check out Threes!, which is still available, and actually does offer a free-to-play version now.
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