[MBCook]

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.

[kaliblack]

You seemed to be implying that he must have known that there was a link between 1024 and Threes and therefore the term rip off was suitable.

[ijk]

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".

[Falling3]

I think they're implying that the term ripoff is suitable regardless of whether he knew there was a link between 1024 and Threes.