Ah, I see. Well, my intention was to simply add evidence to the claim that the creator of the well known 2048 didn't know about Threes when he created it. There seemed to be a dispute, so I remembered the comment and linked to it.
The webpage for that 2048 references Threes, so even he is supporting a line of direct influence.
the point is that you cannot download an iOS app without encountering its description, so to say that you know about 1024 and not Threes is deeply suspect.
Do you read iOS descriptions of apps you know you're going to download? I sure don't! If I see a friend playing a game that looks good, I download it without reading.
He says he wasn't aware of Threes, I have no reason to doubt him. If I saw a simple game and wanted to make my own version, I wouldn't do in-depth research of the original game either.
He was cloning 1024 which was explicitly a clone of Threes. I was only pointing out there was a chain there.
He was explicitly copying _something_, in a chain of direct borrowings that goes back to Threes. You seem to be taking issue with the pejorative implications of "rip off" that the original article is using to demarcate the difference between an exact clone and the near-but-different copies we're seeing now.
The innovation appears to have advanced enough that some of the 2048 variations are more akin "Doom clones" and "Roguelikes" than they are to "app store clones". But the 2048 apps that have flooded the app store and are mostly direct clones of the web 2048 versions. And they exist in a previously unnamed space between "clone" and "variation".