2048: The Nihilistic Face Of Free To Play (opens in new tab)

This article is a good candidate for Poe's Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

For the Onion version, I recommend the headline:

"The very idea that someone would put out any content for free is appalling," writes blogger.

Copyright is insufficient. The mere idea of tile-moving number game must be protected so the "original" creator gets paid. Regardless of whether the idea is so trivially simple that a programmer can reproduce it as a hobby and feels no need to own it.

As Franz Kafka wrote, "we live in an age which is so possesed by demons, that soon we shall only be able to do goodness and justice in the deepest secrecy, as if it were a crime."

> What isn’t alright by me is a game that releases for free and makes no attempt to make money

Are you releasing work for free? You're an evil nihilist.

This is about mere games, and I hate to trivialize serious social events by comparing them to such mundane things, but these kinds of drivel always remind me of McCarthy--Welch exchange in the Senate hearings[0]. "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"... What else can you say to such persons... And yet since they don't have any sense of decency or shame it doesn't bother them when you confront them with their despicable behaviour.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eA5bUzVjA

This is as simultaneously stupid, offensive, and irrelevant as if he'd said that 2048 was designed by a secret cabal of Jews to devalue the work of honest white men. Why is this on Hacker News? Are we hosting the ramblings of madmen now?

I like 2048 better but they are very different.

Monetised free clones still support the market for game developers (i.e. they can have and pay employees).

Monetised free clones provide a model other for-profit developers to copy, whereas non-monetised clones can destroy a business model without suggesting an alternative one.

Monetised free clones have a motive that he can relate to more, and developers supporting themselves is more worthwhile than whatever motivates developers of non-monetised games.

Monetised free clones can have more resources and incentive for creating good games.

Monetised free clones do not devalue the game as much as non-monetised free clones, as there's still a cost, if not so direct.

Competition from free clones in general harms the original developers, but for-profit clone makers are likely to be harder to persuade to stop, let alone by using moral arguments, so its only worth arguing against people who do it for admiration or because it makes them happy, both of which can be reduced by criticising them publicly.

That's pretty cynical and I've probably got some strawman arguments there, so I don't want to attribute them all directly to the author.

I recall an HN thread where the author of 2048 claimed to have never heard of Threes until 2048 got popular. His was a clone of [1024](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1024!/id823499224?mt=8).

I suspect a large part of the popularity stems from the easily hackable JS codebase (which is related to the explosion of 2048 variants)

So, it would be better to be a Beatles cover band, and charge. The real offensive act is giving it away for free.

Never mind that 2048 is clearly different enough to three to be considered different.

The game appears to be making and playing bizzare iterative clones of 2048 and chances are doesn't sound like very good research. People are going out of their way to play all variations of 2048, so if anything I'd expect any similarity in this situation to drive sales.

First, Threes might sell more because of 2048. Also, the games are different in many core ways. I think people will be inclined to download Threes after they get bored of 2048.

Also, casual games aren't about mechanics but presentation. (There are plenty of successful games that are shameless knock-offs.) 2048 went viral because of aesthetic intangibles. I would call its aesthetic "Spartan", but that actually works for a game where you have to think (at least, superficially) about powers of 2.

Finally, the fact that 2048 is free-to-play is not a major threat to the integrity of the game industry or the quality of what is produced. The game industry is shitty because most corporate executives are useless, bikeshedding idiots who subtract more value than one could add in several lifetimes, and the game industry is not particularly worse or better than any other in that regard.

It's not 2048's fault and, besides, I doubt that 2048 hurt Threes in the long run.