What’s your take on the death of the Tetris clone?
It’s game over for the popular ‘Tetris’ clone known as ‘Tris.’ The no. 1 free download from Apple’s App Store has been yanked due to a threatening legal letter. What’s your take on this?
It’s game over for the popular ‘Tetris’ clone known as ‘Tris.’ The no. 1 free download from Apple’s App Store has been yanked due to a threatening legal letter. What’s your take on this?
In case you haven’t been following this story, you might have seen a clever Tetris clone for the iPhone called Tris. It was a free downloadable game for iPhones and iPod touches.
Well, as of Wednesday, the puzzle game is no longer available at the App Store, following a threatening letter received by Apple by The Tetris Company over alleged copyright infringement, says Tris developer Noah Witherspoon.
The disappointed college student writes this on his blog, entitled Two Finger Play:
"I’m afraid it’s essentially game over. Do they have a case? No. Not really. I am convinced that if it went to court, the ‘copyright’ claim would get thrown out completely. The trademark, perhaps not — but if I changed the name, to e.g. Trys, that would be much harder for them to argue."
Witherspoon says he doesn’t have "the time, energy or resources to fight this battle right now."
While he understands The Tetris Company is protecting its interests, the approach they’re taking "seems to me little more than petty bullying" Witherspoon writes. He also says Apple was more than courteous and professional when explaining to Witherspoon why the game had to be taken down from the App Store.
So, do you agree The Tetris Company has to protect its intellectual property? Or do you sympathize with this college student who made this game as a free download for on-the-go gamers?
Filed Under: Games
Considering there are already several thousand varieties of tetris games out there, everything from the customary blocks to pills, and at least half of them are free downloads somewhere on the net, I have to think that Tetris is not only trying to close the barn door after the horse has fled but after this horse has lived out a long and comfortable life in someone else's barn and then died of extreme old age. It's all rather silly and unnecessary on Tetris's part.
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Absolutely agree. It's a Tetris ripof, and althrough not as good as the original, it's still a rip. Smart of Apple to discontinue it lest it be the reciepient of a lawsuit.
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I think it sounds more petty than anything. I always figured that so long as you weren't making money off of something that was copywrited, or copped a name from some trademarked item or idea, it would be okay.
The name's different enough, it's just far too common a game nowadays, in so many different forms, and since the guy wasn't making money from the game, I don't really see a problem.
Though I do agree with Apple's decision to pull it, I'm actually very impressed that they handled it diplomatically with the person, instead of all those PR nightmares we've been hearing about lately. It's not as if the guy can't design more games in the future and provide them to others.
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i agree it is a ripof by apple they should know better
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People are dying in the middle east so WHO CARES?!!!! Oh man, get a freakin' life! There are so many tetris game clones out there already! If it was not a high profile money maker such as Apple, I do not think we would have even heard anything about this. Ok, Tetris tight wads, go around and do the SAME for all the other clones of your game and THEN at least you would come off as consistant!
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A rose by any other name……
What kind of fool would think that simply renaming a game designed by another company, and making it available as an iPod game, would therefore make it his?
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tetris should be ashamed. leave the college kid alone. what tetris should be doing is going after the money that Apple users have. if you can afford to buy an iphone, mac, or ipod, you definitely can afford buying tetris the game or one of its clones for whatever pocket change they charge on those things.
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…? Bob, not to make light of the situation, people are dying here too, but not every story can be about them.
It's a rip-off of Tetris, we've all played cheap knock-offs, and if these big companies took the time or the effort to threaten legal action on all of them–well–they might be much bigger companies.
The iTunes store now has a full legit copy of Tetris for 8 bucks in the US store. So what's the real rip-off?
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That's so true haha.
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