Blips: Infinity x Threes!

Source: Meet the Clones
Author: Patrick Klepek
Site: Giant Bomb

The Threes! cloning story has been pretty well documented at this point, but I found Patrick Klepek's report on the issue particularly enlightening. For a quick update on the issue, the super-popular free mobile game 2048 is a clone of another popular mobile game 1024, which itself is a clone of the popular-but-somewhat-less-so mobile game Threes!, which retails for $1.99. All of these games are tile-sliding puzzlers where each tile has a particular number and certain tiles can be combined to create a new tile that is the sum of the two numbers being combined. While some of these games use different number combinations and color pallets from Threes!, the game mechanics are pretty identical, right down to the size of the game board.

What's great about Klepek's piece is how he tracks through the cloning narrative and actually gets the points of view of the accused cloners, where possible. This is an enlightening approach to the subject where it's all to easy to talk about offending parties without them present (note: depending on the issue, sometimes offenders should not be brought to the table, but this is one where there's potential for good to come out of it and minimal chance of increased harm). It's not really a surprise that none of the clone developers see themselves as doing anything wrong as they each have their own explanations for why they made their version of Threes! the way they did, sometimes ignorant that Threes! even exists. Gabriele Cirulli made the web version of 2048 as a copy of 1024, unbeknownst to that games direct lineage to Threes! It's not really a surprise that the creator of the mobile, ad-enabled version of 2048, which is #1 on the App Store declined comment, since his game is the most unabashed clone of the bunch (a carbon copy of Cirulli's take, plus ads), but since Cirulli released 2048 as open source, there's no legal precedent to prevent this from happening.

Hearing these sides of the story serves to inform the public as to how a situation like this could arise in the first place. You can point to the creator of the ad-filled 2048 as the "bad guy" in this situation, but it's a string of events that made his clone possible. The App Store is a place where opportunists can thrive, and in doing so, they'll throw whatever informal inter-developer honor code may exist under the bus to do so. Where "open source" might mean a constructive, creative environment for experimentation for some, it's just free code to others. Whatever ends up happening on the "clone wars" front will be interesting, but I don't expect much in the way of action from Apple or Google. Instead, I think the fallout of this could potentially have a negative effect on open source game development, with studios deciding to be more protective of their source code than before or striving for more complex, less copyable designs. Or at least these were the views expressed by Threes! dev Greg Wolhwend in Klepek's follow-up interview.

Blips: Trademark Saga

Source: Candy Crush Saga Makers Go After The Banner Saga. For Real.
Author: Luke Plunkett
Site: Kotaku

There's not a whole ton to add to this story, but it's worth sharing for the bizarreness of it all. King.com (not to be confused with Kim Dotcom), makers of the super-popular match-3 game Candy Crush Saga, have threatened legal action against any other app developers using the words "candy" or "saga" in their titles, claiming trademark infringement. As a result, recently launched Norse mythology turn-based strategy game The Banner Saga has received one of these notices, which claims that The Banner Saga's use of "saga" in its title is causing "market confusion."

Anyone can see that this is a ridiculous claim, as the two games have nothing in common, so we can all point and laugh at King.com's folly, but we should also recognize why the Candy Crush maker would do something like this. When questioned about their actions, a spokesperson replied that this was something they had to send "to preserve [their] own position under trademark law." So, in other words, they know they don't have anything on The Banner Saga, but they have to send this nonetheless to cover their bases for the sake of legal precedent. Copycat apps are a real thing on the app store, and there are plenty of developers out there trying to make a quick buck on the very market confusion that is being waved in front of The Banner Saga. I have no doubt that there are games out there called Kandy Krush, Candy Crunch, and Candy Crash, which are King.com's real targets.

Whatever you may think about Candy Crush Saga as a game, let's take a step back and see this legal mess for what it really is.

Blips: Apple Bans Again

Source: Apple bans Joyful Executions iOS game that satirizes North Korea
Author: Stuart Dredge
Site: The Guardian

I can't say this is much of a surprise. Apple has rejected Joyful Executions, a satirical game where you play the leader of a North Korean execution squad, from sale in its App Store. Seeing as games like Phone Story and Sweatshop didn't pass Apple's archaic test, it was likely that Joyful Executions would be turned down as well. I really have to wonder how long Apple is going to go before changing this policy of viewing games as less appropriate venue for personal expression than other forms of media on its digital shelves. I'm sure it's burning through some goodwill from the development community even if it's not currently impacting the corporation's bottom line.

Though I assume developer 8-Bit Underpants would have loved to see their game available to the vast iOS market, these days, being rejected from the App Store brings it's own kind of publicity as well. I mean, I might not have heard of the game had it otherwise just been released quietly into a crowded marketplace. Who's to say, though as this kind of news becomes more frequent, I'm curious how perception of banned games will change. I think I smell a banned games Android Humble Bundle in the works...

Blips: Ban All the Things!

Source: Apple rejects the notion that games are the place for comment, but it's built right into the medium
Author: Steven Poole
Site: Edge

Apple's tenuous relationship with games soldiers on. With the recent removal of Sweatshop HD from the App Store, Apple has proven that they fundamentally do not understand games except the part where selling them is good for business. Steven Poole argues that this lack of comprehension isn't just that Apple fails to see that games can "mean something," but that any man-made interactive product implicitly conveys meaning through "procedural rhetoric." If Apple rejects a game for espousing political, social, or religious opinions, shouldn't the rest of the App Store be held to the same standards? In which case, Poole concludes, shouldn't everything else be banned too?

What Apple seems to be filtering, other than singling out games, is message explicitness. Both Sweatshop HD and the previously banned Phone Story get right to the heart of their chosen subject matter. Sweatshop HD is about running a sweatshop and what a horrible exploitive system it is. Likewise, Phone Story presented an interactive narrative of smartphone manufacturing and certain inhumane practices that have been purportedly implemented in those processes. In both cases, it's difficult to miss the point of what the developers are getting at.

Perhaps it's time for developers to go subliminal. Why struggle past Apple's gatekeepers when you can just hypnotize your way to the store front and deep into players' brains. Why, you could even make a game that's so fun to play, it's almost like people are addicted to it, like they have a gambling problem or some other detrimental condition. But who am I kidding, Apple would never let games like that through when they don't allow socially conscious "message" games, right?