Weird, I played 2048 a ton and only opened Threes a few times.

What a terrible title.

Threes is a beautiful game, not just aesthetically but in game design. I never felt that way about 2048. To me, it feels plays like a cheap version of Threes - simpler and easier to beat. Fun, but less interesting.

2048 does suck. To take somebody's years of work, clone it, slap an ad on it , make millions and steal their accomplishment is revolting.

Threes is the meal equivalent of an well-made expensive dinner, whereas 2048 is like eating at McDonald's. Like what you want, but I like quality.

And lastly, let's also say there's a reason why the creator of Threes, (and not the creator of 2048) has chilled with the creator of Tetris. /rant

Yeah, Threes is a more delightful playing experience, but this article is insulting. I play 2048 because it's free and it's an amusing time-waster for an iPhone that won't last for more than 2 years.

We're not talking about the Sistine Chapel here.

This quote from the Threes creators jumped out at me more than anything in this article:

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.

This might be why everyone has made such a stink over 2048's huge success relative to Threes. Not because Threes necessarily deserved to win, but because it all happened so quickly that they never really got the credit they felt they had earned.

But the key word there: "felt." They felt they deserved the crown but 2048 snatched it away before they had a running chance. (Plus, to add insult to injury, people were soon calling their game, Threes, the thing they had slaved tirelessly on for over a year, a mere 2048 clone.) Their blog post on the issue reeks of frustration and pent-up emotion. Quite understandably. I'd be upset too.

But let's step back for a second. When creating a game, especially as a small indie developer, one of the risks is that your idea might be cloned. You can try to offset this risk by putting enough time in to make sure your product stands out in the crowd. And, to be fair, that's exactly what Threes did -- their attention to detail really shines through. This approach has proven to work in plenty of cases, where the rip-offs just don't quite have the same mass appeal as the genuine product.

But unfortunately no matter how good your product is, some ideas are just more easily cloned. And 2048, which was released for free with source code on GitHub and an MIT license, was a game that shouted "clone me," and so people did. It's really hard to compete with that.

It's especially difficult when the "clone" you're competing against is less of a game and more of an endorphin rush. 2048 gives immediate gratification and keeps the rush constant, while Threes, despite a better fun ratio, simply requires more mental energy to play. It's amazing how only a few small tweaks the formula can create such a spike in addiction.

The creator of 2048 claims he had never even played Threes before releasing his version. Instead, he based 2048 off of another game by the same name, which itself was based off of '1024!', which now claims to be the 'original 2048' but undoubtedly started as a Threes clone.

So here we have an immensely successful game that is at least two steps removed from actually being a direct "Threes" clone, and is released as a side project for fun and for free, yet the claim is that 2048 sucks and Threes is awesome because the team that built Threes spent months refining and designing the game, while 2048 just appeared out of nowhere with seemingly very little effort and ripped-off their idea. Despite that being the major risk when devoting so much time and resources to an indie game.

Unfortunately, time sunk into a project does not equal entitlement. It's an interesting case study, and one I hope indie game designers can learn from going forward. Perhaps we'll see more indie games being released in the open source, "clone me" fashion, hoping to ride a bigger wave. Or maybe not. Either way, it's hard to say if Threes actually deserved more success, since 2048's vehicle for release spawned so many riffs, remixes, and iterations. I don't think the same could have ever happened for a closed source iOS game.

I wouldn't say 2048 sucks, I really enjoyed playing it on Android before Threes was available. I would instead say that design is why Threes' experience is better. The animation changes in the faces of Threes' tiles as they are about to be merged and the sounds are delightful.

Threes deserves more credit, in general, than they've received for their work.

Wow, expected this to be a rant on someone's personal blog, not a headline on Wired. Very click baity from them.

Not disagreeing that Threes! is a fantastic game, but... Does something that brings enjoyment, no matter how fleeting, to thousands and thousands of people, really suck?

Threes is so great. Huge in-depth piece on their blog about competitors.