The timing is suspect and the response of "it just isn't fun" followed by them publishing the same exact game is also shady.
Media, games included, using the same sounds isn't unheard of. How many "bwwrrrrr" sounds have you heard in movie trailers? You know the one [0]. The typography is also different. Though the button colors and icon set are the same. How popular is that icon set though? I don't know enough about app dev. to judge on that.
I'll give my benefit of the doubt to the author because of [1] though. That gives off a bad smell - stolen game or not. Kudos for turning it into motivation to try and educate people and fix a problem.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=830I9w7I7wM
[1] Rejecting a game for concept then publishing that same concept.
I can't comment on them stealing it - your evidence hinges on them being "app cow"? - but the concept predates you all by years, it's possible ketchapp have nothing to do with similar games - http://www.kongregate.com/games/Gnomlab/pong-360.
You should have just published the game yourself. Flappy bird didn't use any game publisher.
Ketchapp had nothing to do with creating 2048 game, other than publishing it to the App Store. It was created by Gabriele Cirulli. Here's his blog post re: the aftermath: http://gabrielecirulli.com/articles/2048-success-and-me
Ketchapp just published it to the app store (maybe with some customizations).
The title is completely unfair to the original creator of 2048.
The article doesn't exactly make this clear... is the claim that they stole his code, or that they just used the same concept to make their own similar game?
Looks more like he is advertising his "course" and have an email list to market his games.
"Matt Akins is the founder of Tapped, an online community built around iOS game development education. Learn how to rapidly design, develop, and distribute iOS games without making the same mistakes he has like getting his game stolen by the assholes who cloned Threes."
The author comments here on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3466i9/the_2048_guy...
In particular, he misattributed Ketchapp as the "2048 guys."
What is the point of any publisher in the 21st century anyways?
I'd be DMCA'ing the shit out of anyone and everyone i could, make their life a living hell.
i'm sad this isn't on the frontpage
Are Ketchapp really "the 2048 guys"?
My memory of the situation was that 2048 was a Web game, which took off among a large group of people that Threes didn't reach (people without iPhones, people who weren't going to pay for a small puzzle game, and people who just wanted to play a quick game on the Web).
And because it was open source and had an incredibly untrademarkable name, a bunch of app developers made mobile clones of it. I assume that Ketchapp was one of them and that the creator of 2048 was entirely uninvolved. Correct me if I'm wrong. It seems to me that the title should be "Some guys who cloned 2048 also cloned another game".
I'm dismayed that someone making a fun, free Web game and expecting nothing in return can turn into a symbol of evil cloning in the mobile game industry. Are we returning to the mindset where open source is seen as maliciously undercutting commercial software?