Threes vs. 2048: When rip-offs do better than the original game

My daughter has obsessed over a new mobile game called 2048. It’s a simple numbers-matching game, and everybody is playing it. The title from Ketchapp shot to No. 1 for free apps on the Apple iOS store after just 15 days, and it has held that position since last Monday.

The only problem is that it’s a copycat game, as Sirvo, the makers of Threes pointed out in an open letter a couple of days ago. The letter shows the angst of modern creators who are powerless to do much about cloners, iterators, and homages that people might fail to realize are not the real thing.