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And 2048 was free while Threes charged $2. If you create something that is very easily cloned for nothing less than ad revenue... this is why the term "competitive advantage" exists.

It's the same old story of RMS and Symbolics, played out again as farce.

2048 is fairly different, so either the specifics were not that important, or the creator of 2048 just got incredibly lucky to hit on a variation that was also great.

Edit: OK downvoters, you need to reply and explain what you think is wrong here. It seems pretty straightforward to me. You can't have it both ways. If the details matter so much that Threes required a year to develop to get everything right, then how did 2048 become so successful when it changes so many details?

I've played both games. The only difference I see (in term of game mechanics) is that 2048 have no "3" tiles but only power-of-2.

Here's a different opinion from elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7501908

Those details seem like exactly the sort of thing you'd spend a long time sweating over if you're going to spend this much time on a game like that.