
The 2048 guys stole my iPhone game - mu_killnine
https://medium.com/ios-game-development/the-2048-guys-stole-my-iphone-game-5ba541283c4d
======
rspeer
Are Ketchapp really "the 2048 guys"?

My memory of the situation was that 2048 was a Web game, which took off among
a large group of people that Threes didn't reach (people without iPhones,
people who weren't going to pay for a small puzzle game, and people who just
wanted to play a quick game on the Web).

And because it was open source and had an incredibly untrademarkable name, a
bunch of app developers made mobile clones of it. I assume that Ketchapp was
one of them and that the creator of 2048 was entirely uninvolved. Correct me
if I'm wrong. It seems to me that the title should be "Some guys who cloned
2048 also cloned another game".

I'm dismayed that someone making a fun, free Web game and expecting nothing in
return can turn into a symbol of evil cloning in the mobile game industry. Are
we returning to the mindset where open source is seen as maliciously
undercutting commercial software?

~~~
mu_killnine
The author notes on his r/gamedev post that actually he got the name wrong.
Ketchapp isn't the original 2048 guys but rather a group that knocked off the
concept (a foreboding allusion to what happens to the author). That said, a
_lot_ of folks knocked off the threes concept. Still, I found it ironic in
this context.

~~~
sjs382
> The author notes on his r/gamedev post that actually he got the name wrong.

Great, but he should correct it in the post, so as not to bring innocent
people into his scuffle.

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Nadya
The timing is suspect and the response of "it just isn't fun" followed by them
publishing the same exact game is also shady.

Media, games included, using the same sounds isn't unheard of. How many
"bwwrrrrr" sounds have you heard in movie trailers? You know the one [0]. The
typography is also different. Though the button colors and icon set are the
same. How popular is that icon set though? I don't know enough about app dev.
to judge on that.

I'll give my benefit of the doubt to the author because of [1] though. That
gives off a bad smell - stolen game or not. Kudos for turning it into
motivation to try and educate people and fix a problem.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=830I9w7I7wM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=830I9w7I7wM)

[1] Rejecting a game for concept then publishing that same concept.

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benologist
I can't comment on them stealing it - your evidence hinges on them being "app
cow"? - but the concept predates you all by years, it's possible ketchapp have
nothing to do with similar games -
[http://www.kongregate.com/games/Gnomlab/pong-360](http://www.kongregate.com/games/Gnomlab/pong-360).

~~~
emerongi
You can't deny that both games look very similar. Coincidence, maybe, but if
App Cow truly has a connection to Ketchapp and if they did have a
"placeholder" app that they patched over, it at least looks fishy.

~~~
benologist
Both games also look similar to this one published months before them -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.wastelands....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.wastelands.studios.PongoPongo).
If pastels were 'in' when that flash developer made that version it would look
very similar too. I have a friend who made a completely different game that
looks similar too -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.net.papers...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.net.paperstreetgames.occulus).

I think better evidence is still needed to connect ketchapp and app cow,
without that this could just be developers piling onto a simple mechanic +
popular aesthetic.

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wichcraft
You should have just published the game yourself. Flappy bird didn't use any
game publisher.

~~~
ablation
If that had happened, I wonder if we'd have seen this post being made by the
creator of Pongo Pongo instead? The tangled, twisted world of app development,
eh?

~~~
wichcraft
You never know what can happen in the internet world.

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sjs382
Ketchapp had nothing to do with creating 2048 game, other than publishing it
to the App Store. It was created by Gabriele Cirulli. Here's his blog post re:
the aftermath: [http://gabrielecirulli.com/articles/2048-success-and-
me](http://gabrielecirulli.com/articles/2048-success-and-me)

Ketchapp just published it to the app store (maybe with some customizations).

The title is completely unfair to the original creator of 2048.

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emodendroket
The article doesn't exactly make this clear... is the claim that they stole
his code, or that they just used the same concept to make their own similar
game?

~~~
mikelyman
To me it sounded like they stole his concept and design. He added them on Test
Flight which will share an app for testing so it may be possible to reverse
engineer it (I don't know) but I imagine they built their own game based on
what he shared with them. Be careful what IP you share with others.

~~~
emodendroket
Well if his "concept" was "pong, but in a disc" I'm not really sure there's
all that much to defend there.

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desidio
Looks more like he is advertising his "course" and have an email list to
market his games.

"Matt Akins is the founder of Tapped, an online community built around iOS
game development education. Learn how to rapidly design, develop, and
distribute iOS games without making the same mistakes he has like getting his
game stolen by the assholes who cloned Threes."

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tgb
The author comments here on reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3466i9/the_2048_guy...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3466i9/the_2048_guys_stole_my_iphone_game/)

In particular, he misattributed Ketchapp as the "2048 guys."

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philippnagel
What is the point of any publisher in the 21st century anyways?

~~~
emodendroket
The difficulty of cutting through the noise in the App Store, I'd guess. It's
really hard to find things you might like outside of the "most popular" and
recommendations (which obviously also is biased toward popular games).

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eonw
I'd be DMCA'ing the shit out of anyone and everyone i could, make their life a
living hell.

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aberatiu
i'm sad this isn't on the frontpage

~~~
ChristianGeek
Why? It's a personal sob story rather than an article on how to protect your
IP (questionable in this case) while attempting to market your software.

Rule #1? Never show anything to anyone without a non-disclosure.

