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Comment by ScottWhigham | Hacker News Reader

I just can't figure out what the developer stands to gain from giving out such private and proprietary information... If you go around telling people that you make $500,000 in ads on a simple iPhone game that someone else could clone, you should expect to be hit with tons of clones and SEM trying to take traffic away. I don't get it.

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They may be anticipating that the payoff from ads is about to decrease, so they're willing to trade short-term publicity (and an increased chance of acquisition) for the long-term risk of increased competition.

There's no cost to download or play - what's the incentive to play a clone? Especially when all your friends are playing the real one.

> what's the incentive to play a clone?

The funny thing I noticed when I played the free version previously is that the developer actually manages to tell a story during the game and has little bits of humour in it. These things make a difference.

(The storyline includes traveling around the world playing competitively and when you return your waste basket is covered in country flag stickers. Then there's the audio feedback when you throw paper outside the screen.)

Ha! When we sit around and brainstorm ideas for new levels in Paper Toss or World Tour (or secret future projects) we always joke about how no one probably has any idea that there is a storyline behind it. That's pretty cool you noticed that :)

Pleased for you to know all that effort didn't go unnoticed. :)

Intrigued to see another tech company based in Boulder. I spent some time visiting a client there a few months ago. Seems like there's quite the tech community growing there.

clones of mobile games don't seem to do well. Angry Birds is pretty much the #1 mobile game and I haven't seen any outright clones do well on the app store. If a game is popular and most people know about it, people will quickly recognize clones and avoid them.

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