I’ve Fallen In Love With A Clone

It doesn’t feel good. In fact, it feels bad. But I’ve fallen in love with a video game clone and playing the real thing doesn’t feel like an option.

I should be playing Threes! but I’m playing 2048. Before I realise my faux pax it was already too late.

I simply didn’t realise. I vaguely remembered some sort of controversy, I remembered a post written by Kotaku US about some sort of issue between two similar iOS games, but on the weekend a friend of mine showed me 2048, he asked if I could beat his score. I had a quick try. I’ve been playing this God forsaken game ever since.

I know it’s wrong but I’m too far gone to stop. I’m already talking to my friend about 2048. I’m already Googling advice to increase my score, I’m already part of the conversation and, crucially, I’m already familiar and comfortable with the way 2048 plays, the way it feels to swish the numbers, the slight subtleties of its rule-set. I’ve already, in some weird way, built up some sort of muscle memory with the game and how I engage with it. It’s too hard to go back. I don’t want to go back. I am invested. I have a friend to compete with. I’ve fallen for a clone. It feels bad, but it also feels good.

Why did I fall for 2048 over Threes!? The real tragedy is it was nothing to do with the quality of the game, nothing to do with 2048 improving upon the formula of Threes!. If that were the case I would feel zero regret. Literally the only reason I’m playing 2048 is because a friend showed it to me. Most likely the only reason he was playing it was because someone else showed him the game, he most likely was playing the game because it was in the iOS top 10 or possibly because the game was free instead of $2.49.

The iOS marketplace is a strange place. Certain games crossover and others don’t and there’s little rhyme or reason to it. 2048 is a simpler game compared to Threes!, that could have been something to do with it. 2048 is free, that probably helped. Maybe it was an issue with the name? Maybe people like numbers to go in multiples of two and are comfortable with that symmetry, who knows. It’s strange but the end result is this: I am playing a clone and I will most likely never play a game of Threes! in my life.

But I just did something a little strange. Bugger it, why not. I just tapped my way into the App Store. I typed ‘Threes’ into the search engine and I spent $2.49 buying an App I will never open, not even once.

I might never play a game of Threes! in my life, but I can do the developers the service of buying it. That’s the least I can do.


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


19 responses to “I’ve Fallen In Love With A Clone”