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I feel that your second point is vitally important for creators (particularly new developers) to spend time thinking about.

For a long while I was caught in the trap of believing that I wasn't any good because none of my work had "taken off" as much as the work I would hear about on HN or TechCrunch, etc. It's a dangerous place to be, particularly because it can lead to a lack of motivation and ultimately debilitating depression. But it's also a myth, to believe you're not producing the same caliber of work as others (though you may not be, that's a discussion for a whole new thread).

I think it's important for us to acknowledge just how much _luck_ plays into the success of creations like 2048. Granted, the game is stellar and beautifully crafted, but there was a lot of luck involved in the wave it got to ride, from the timing of release, to the time it was posted to HN, to the people who tweeted about it, and so on.

Hype (marketing) plays a role, but I think a game's popularity is generally a function of its addictiveness multiplied by its quality. There are exceptions, such as Goat Simulator (which was almost entirely a fad) but it seems like the inherent nature of 2048 would let it succeed in any era. It's viscerally addictive for many people, so as long as you can get some number of people playing it, it'll do fine.

It seems like another reason 2048 was successful is because it was open source from the start. There were about a dozen remixed versions of 2048, and few of those would have happened without the source code being available from the beginning. People would have made their own versions, but it would have taken a lot more time than "let's just use this code that already exists."

As a developer submitting to Show HN, there are some projects that I expected to take off and some that were mere novelties. Two of my biggest projects were things I didn't expect to make a bleep, yet the project that I considered most useful [0] never went anywhere

[0] https://github.com/kolodny/nip

For "nip", I suspect that is because it quite literally is "plumbing" of a sort that people have their favourite tools for from before, whether it's awk, sed, perl, or any other language interpreter that can easily take an expression on the command line (e.g. ruby can pretend to be both awk and sed of sorts with the right command line options).

It looks neat, but it'd appeal to people who spend most of their time doing stuff with node anyway, and doesn't have other scripting alternatives they prefer for one-liners.

There's a ton of inertia for those kind of tools. E.g. even though I prefer Ruby, I tend to use awk for one-liners because I can expect it to be available "everywhere", and because I have "muscle memory" for dozens of common patterns because I started using it so long ago.

That's not a criticism of your tool - just some thoughts on reasons why it might be harder to get attention for that kind of tool.

> [...]we need to remember that (hubris aside) what we do everyday, even if it's just a side project we did for fun one evening, has the potential to change the world in an instant[...]

Really? So '2048' changed the world. I have this feeling that developers change the world more often than Cartoon/TV-heros save thew world these days. How many apps away from world peace?!

ps. Developers are the only group of people who are so disillusioned to collectively think that their products change the world. That Steve Jobs destroyed 3 generations with 1 phrase.

NOTE: nothing wrong with the app-creator. I'm really happy for him, it's just that every time I read about a developer who changed the world (writing an application) I wanna burn my eyes on a brazier.

When 23 million people are talking about your little weekend project, you have changed the world.

Maybe your definition of 'change the world' is too stringent.

Squeezable ketchup bottles changed the world too.

Instead of being so uptight about how people use the phrase why you don't you start trying to create your own impact?

These days 8 million people talk about a monkey peeing in its mouth on youtube [1]. It doesn't mean the monkey changed the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DBuk91phkI

8 million people chuckled - and I bet you did.

Many of those 8 million had something unforgettable and bizarrely enlightening to share with their friends, or not, as the case may be (if they don't really have any friends). I would say that you underestimate that monkey, he has brought a lot of happiness to a lot of people and he fully deserves his own reality TV show. So, yep, he has changed the world.

I much prefer the world to be changed by things like 2048, which is like an online version of the Rubik's Cube for our times.

Contrast with the world-changing ways of the politicians. Bush, Blair and co worked very hard to take the world to war, yet, ultimately, they lost and it was all a complete waste of time.

"Changed the world" could have a variety of meanings. Taken literally, it could mean "altered or affected the world in any amount." Going with such a strict definition, nearly everything changes the world.

The other extreme, the one people frequently have in mind, is "to change or alter many parts of the world very directly", such as the invention of flight.

However, a better phrase for the feeling in developer circles I think would be "touched the world." Doing so, with the internet, is easy. Like building a public bench in a city park, many people may gain small enjoyment from it, and as the one who built it, all that small joy brings you lots of excitement.

Think about it like this: If the creator posted a link on the page for a worthy cause, he has the audience necessary to make a huge difference. Whereas if you were to start from nothing and try to create impact, it would be a major uphill battle.

The hard part is reaching enough people. He has already done that.

Another way to think about it: Richard Sherman is a cornerback for the Seahawks. Is he having an impact? Well, they just signed him to a $58 Million contract. And part of what he does with his money is fund the The Richard Sherman Family Foundation whose goal is to help as many kids as possible have adequate School supplies and clothes.

So does Richard Sherman change the world by intercepting passes and talking trash after playoff games? You bet he does.

People who have the platform to change the world are more likely to, in either a positive or a negative direction.

If you want to get philosophical, the world is actually changing every second, with every interaction that happens.

Besides, this game might just be a stepping stone for something bigger.

> When 23 million people are talking about your little weekend project, you have changed the world.

How has 2048 changed the world?

I hope you can come back to this comment years later with another perspective. If you read the comments on this thread, you will see how many people learned about github and FLOSS just from 2048. Its transparency and apparent simplicity have been huge draws for millions of people. It has changed the way lots of people think about software, and it has only been around for weeks.

The fact that anyone would question that a project like this would change the world indicates that there's still a kind of meta-narrative playing out in people's minds that tells them that only established players can have any real impact on things. It may seem chaotic, but any weekend project could become just as influential as any software out there.

We're still hopefully pretty early in the history of programming.

We still need large projects and always have. Your weekend project might win you the popularity contest and make you a millionaire, but will you still be in vogue the next year or the year after? We've already seen numerous of these changing the world entertainment products come and go, and yet the world is as it was, with the same basic problems continuing to get worse.

You'll never know. There could be some little girl who played it, loved it, picked it apart and ended up getting into programming herself, and she might be the cofounder of something that improves the lives of billions. You'll never know.

In that scenario, the little girl changed the world, not 2048.

To whoever downvoted me: would you care to elaborate as to why you disagree?

Ultimately, it was 2048 that downvoted you.

I didn't downvote you, but I think that's an exceedingly narrow view of causality. We've all been inspired by books, films, games, teachers, etc. If we go on to do great things, we owe a debt to everything that got us to where we go.

> If we go on to do great things, we owe a debt to everything that got us to where we go.

I agree, but the claim was essentially that "x changes y" is a transitive relation (I tried to express this notion in a less mathematical way, but it was the best I could come up with), which is an exceedingly broad view of causality.

If "changing the world" was as simple as spending a couple of days hacking up a simplistic browser game, a lot more people would do it. Similarly, if the criteria for "changed the world" were so low, the term would essentially be meaningless.

I'm definitely using a broad view of causality, yes. Whether that's excessive or not I think depends on what you're trying to achieve. I think of it from the perspective of- would I like to encourage or discourage whatever is happening?

> If "changing the world" was as simple as spending a couple of days hacking up a simplistic browser game, a lot more people would do it.

That sorta implies (to me) that a lot of people are doing things that genuinely change the world, in the high-criteria sense. Is that really true, though? I think the world would definitely be a richer place if we had a lot more "simplistic browser games"- elegant, engaging, entertaining. I can't say in advance what that would lead to, but I'm sure a world with 100 different versions of 2048 (and I don't mean direct copies, but different games altogether that were addictive, compelling and fun in different ways) would be a relatively more interesting world.

And it'll only take a couple of days per person, no? So why isn't this already the case? Why aren't we awash in this stuff? Is it because most people are busy working on more meaningful things? (Objectively I think we can say things like ending malaria, improving education, project: water, etc are all 'more meaningful' in an anthropocentric sense... but is that what most people are working on?)

sorry for wordiness

Personally, and of course you can define it however you want, I think something that "changes the world" needs to be both significant and lasting. Getting people to play one game instead of another for a few months isn't either. Squeezable ketchup bottles are much closer.

Instead of being obsessed with entertainment and other forms of self gratification, it would be nice if people focused on important problems with actual historical consequence.

So, instead of engaging in some harmless recreation, you reckon it's morally superior to go on Hacker News and chastise people for engaging in harmless recreation?

I think instead of being obsessed with criticizing others, it would be nice if people focused on just about anything else in the world.

Games are not the loftiest goal in the world, but they do make people happy and engage their minds. Not everyone is going to cure cancer, and it is not reasonable to criticize them for not being that person. Yes, curing cancer would be grand, but we need plumbers too. Just because something isn't historically significant doesn't mean it isn't significant.

I'm not criticizing them for what they do, I'm criticizing them for the whole wooo I'm changing the world arrogance. Take it down a notch and get some perspective.

The one thing more frustrating than "woo i'm changing the world" arrogance is "woo, i'm making a difference by helping the 'woo i'm changing the world' people get some perspective."

If you don't like their arrogance, put them in their place by doing better.

I've already done better. I've contributed significantly to the first draft of one of the human chromosomes. I've helped prepare parts for the LHC by cleaning them to remove contaminants, and I've made several open and novel contributions to science.

I'm now working on changing a small area of society, but I don't make any arrogant claims of changing the world in doing so.

LOL, one of the best come backs I've seen on HN :)

I enjoyed 2048, but yeah it didn't change my life in the slightest.

And every other "world changing effect" they ascribe to it, could more easily explained with the "butterfly effect", than the significance of this game.

UPDATE: Downvoting with someone you disagree is fun, but try at least offering an argument.

Oh, so you'd be one of the guys telling Zuckenberg to stop fooling around with stupid site with students' pictures, and start doing serious things?

Or telling Jobs & Wozniak that their tiny computer for hobbyists is meaningless, and they should do some serious work with mainframes.

Or perhaps you'd walk up to Picasso and tell him to stop painting triangles and squares, and get into industrial design? And scientific illustrations?

See, the effect of a project can be estimated in hindsight. 2048 made some people interested in programming, and inspired a ton of other people. Who knows, perhaps some future Einstein in 20 years will say: "it all started when I played this stupid game, that had an open source, and I decided to play with it."

What if, 50 years from now, game design textbooks talk about 2048 and how it became a near instant hit in the early 2000s?

So playing and talking about a game means you never focus on important problems?

This is slightly unfair.

Not everything that qualifies for the phrase "changed the world" needs to solve a significant problem like poverty, health or hunger.

Sometimes just being present in the minds of a lot of people is sufficient to qualify. 2048 first took over HN for a entire month. I'd open HN every day anticipating a different port. Then it went mainstream and has since been played potentially many thousands even millions of minutes. I think that qualifies as changing the world in a tiny way.

Don't you?

What exactly is the changed thing? World before and world after seem exactly the same to me. Instead of talking and cloning flappy bird, people talk about and clone 2048.

Even before, people played angry birds and before other game, but I admit they did not cloned them that much - but that change came with flappy jam.

I can't speak for others, but for me, this is how 20148 changed my world

I realized, when I played 2048, that I could have built it too. This was enlightening because I realized we were confined by the limitations we place on ourselves. It changed my view of the world, at least, and hopefully of some more developers like me.

Touché. But don't worry, I've been watching Silicon Valley as well (great show).

Please note I'm not saying this was some sort of amazing act of altruism, or that Gabriele has "redefined a paradigm". But the fact remains that millions (probably?) have dedicated a portion of their daily lives to this game, and that, by definition changes things within the world we live in. I don't mean to cause offense, but I happen to think that your reaction is more of a protest that our world is now at a point where change does happen through seemingly small, insignificant, passing fancies. And while I might tend to agree with you that maybe we shouldn't be so obsessed with such things, the reality is that we are. To ignore this fact would be worse than elevating it to saying that "2048 changed the world forever, for the good of all mankind". (Which is what I believe you think I'm saying)

Sorry but changing the world is a phrase open to interpretation. To me sounds extremely pretentious as I don't have any software developer in that list.

When you mention people who change the world I picture Mandela, King, Ghandi and other political leaders who made their lives and the lives of their societies better. A piece of software can not achieve something of similar scale and importance because... There's nothing like an idea that becomes a movement.

I don't want to start a flame and I feel that this conversation is taking the wrong turn so I won't post other replies.

Anyway, nothing personal against you or the dev.

Best of luck with everything

Humanitarians change the world but so do inventors.

I would argue that Edison, Bell, Ford and the like all changed the world significantly. Did they change it for the better? Who is to say?

Mandela, King and Ghandi certainly were overt in their motives to change the world for the better, so in many ways they may be more visible targets, but Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, and the whole current raft of inventors of Twitter, Facebook, etc. have certainly changed the world.

> I don't have any software developer in that list.

RMS changed the world by an idea that became a movement — but it would go no where it he didn't attach them to some excellent software, practicing the idea throught [cue Ghandi "be the change..."].

Jimmy Wales changed the world, again by idea + software.

Diffie & Hellman changed the world, in a much more fundamental way. The possibility of end-to-end security didn't visibly touch people the way Wikipedia did, yet it put all our lives on a different track. OK, that was scientific discovery, not programming but it's way closer to programming than to political speeches.

Bitcoin changed the world, again idea + software. It's unclear at this moment if a cryptocurrency changes it much — or for better — but the very fact that it's here, without anybody's permission, is novel.

The very ideas that building stuff can change the world — and that giving it away maximizes your impact — are a major change in the world!

[gross simplifications and omissions in all of the above.]

Only technology changes the world.

Without technology we would still live in the stone age. Politicians don't matter. Nothing grand in a hunter-gatherer band leader ordering a fight with another band.

> Only technology changes the world.

Democracy is not "technology", nor does it necessarily require technology. Your claim implies that democracy didn't change the world. Are you serious about this?

Development of a political (and economic) systems is dependent on technological development. Of course, the reverse is also true. Taken abstractly, we might say democracy doesn't require technology, but in the real world it doesn't happen. Democracy (I'm assuming we're speaking about the parliamentary, representative democracy) became necessary when means of production developed beyond Medieval artisanship.

Quick note: you mean deluded, not disillusioned.

(Disillusion is the disappointment/cynicism/&c. you experience when you find out that you used to be deluded.)

Yes, right.

I agree. In the realm of games, Starcraft and Counter Strike changed the world, largely contributing to the creation of a new industry, where e-sports professionals can make a living playing games. 2048, while a great creation, has not changed the world in any significant way.

> has not changed the world in any significant way

Adding the "in any significant way" qualifier essentially means you agree that 2048 changed the world.

If I pick up a stone and move it six inches I have changed the world. Some kind of qualifier is necessary for a phrase that vague.

I guess it has to be implicitly added as soon as we speak about changing the world. At some level everything change the world and then the expression loses its meaning.

I have this feeling that developers change the world more often than Cartoon/TV-heros save thew world these days.

It's probably correct. How many fictional heroes are there, compared to how many real world developers?

ps. Developers are the only group of people who are so disillusioned to collectively think that their products change the world.

Lots of non-developers think their efforts can change the world:

http://right-brain-law.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-went-to-law-sc...

http://admissions.uoregon.edu/majors/political%20science "Get Ready to Change the World"

http://sydney.edu.au/arts/donors/change_world.shtml "10 ways an arts degree can change the world"

Do you have a real point to go with the bitter cynicism?

No. Not at the same %: Just take a look at how many startups are deliberately stating to change the world.

The claim is pretentious and false: it gives a sense of virtue which is absolutely not there. I'm not referring to the author of minor projects, I'm referring to Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg, as well.

People that changed the world range from M. L. King, to Ghandi and N. Mandela with numerous others in between. To me is disrespectful to those who gave their lives in order to change the world to make such a claim while becoming a millionaire in the process, sitting on a cosy sofa behind a computer screen. Developers are creating technologies (from Bitcoin to OpenGPG). These are tools which can be used for good or bad (surveillance). Software doesn't take the streets, nor will pass legislations through parliaments. So it might change some aspects of every day life, but meaningful changes do not happen using iPhones: Syndications in China are illegal. And there's no technology (Tor, Bitcoin, OTR, GPG, Twitter, etc) that will make syndications legal. Only people can do that and it's not an easy and peaceful process.

The world changes when ideas turn into social/political movements and then legislation are passed. Usually many people die in between.

So if for you Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and StartupXYZ chasing VPs are the same thing, then we have different values, views and not much to discuss.

He isn't being cynical, he is reacting to pretentiousness and pomposity, and quite rightly too. And of course developers do not have a monopoly of such self aggrandisment.

Developers are most certainly not the only group of people who suffer from this.

I also think that there's actually some truth in feeling like you can change the world through code. There have been a huge number of code projects that have impacted out culture a whole lot over the last 20 years and in many ways they've been by far the most visible cultural lampposts.

Re: #5 - the game is incredibly popular at the local high schools in my area. I was pretty surprised how ubiquitous the game was and that all, and I mean all, of the students knew what it was and had most likely played it.

The most interesting thing was how many different algorithms the students developed to try and solve getting 2048. Unfortunately they didn't know about the web version on Github which made trying them out much faster and fun than swiping a phone for hours.

Regarding #3: I'm actually annoyed seeing my friends who all play 2048 on their phones. Not even the one Gabriele made, some clone by 'Ketchapp'. I often tell people about Threes but they've never heard of it. I show them Threes and then say that "it only costs $1.99" and straight away they basically tell me to get lost because it costs money.

I think #5 is wrong. 2048 is based on numbers but has very little to do with math--you can play the game just as easily using only colors. At best students are learning the powers of two, and at worst they're wasting time they should've spent on chess or checkers, or basketball.

The numbers make it easier to play, it's obvious that 2 4s will combine into an 8. Not so obvious what 2 colours or doges will combine into.

It's more than that if you take moment to think about strategy and how many tiles and turns you need to make progress. It can be a very nice case-study in exponentiation/logarithm, big-O, etc

Try solving it algorithmically and you'll find plenty of ways to apply mathematical theorem.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22342854/what-is-the-opti...

>implying math is about numbers

(but yes, learning the powers of two is only a tiny fraction of math)

Why is time better spent on chess? Because it's somewhat social?

Didn't mean to make that claim, but I'd guess that chess is better for cognitive development because its demands on working memory are limitless. This is speculative, but it's also speculative to claim that 2048 is any better for learning than Candy Crush.

Regarding point 1, to add to that weirdness, all of this closely followed the massive App Store success of Threes, which 2048 is nearly a clone of (and I understand that Threes is nearly a clone of another earlier game).

Threes! was the original, not "nearly a clone".

I wasn't sure, but I thought that there was an even older game that was extremely similar to 2048 and Threes. I remember people got upset when the Threes developers accused 2048 of cloning them [0], because they thought Threes was itself a clone of something earlier.

[0] http://asherv.com/threes/threemails/#letter

You thought? Just not very hard, clearly.

Please don't be rude in Hacker News comments.

2048 is most definitely a clone.

The proliferation of 2048 culminated for me when I was sitting on an airplane and the kid next to me was playing it.

5: While there may not be that much use for memorising and recognising powers of 2, it's still something that, oddly enough, a lot of CS students seem to struggle with. 2048 could be perfect for that purpose.

Now if there was only a game, similarly simple and addictive, that implicitly taught how logic gates work, maybe we wouldn't be so far from having everyone have a basic idea of how computers work... I believe that the best type of learning is implicit, so there's certainly a lot of potential here. Your observation also shows this characteristic that some people just hate being explicitly taught and can't seem to learn that way, but get them to do something they enjoy and is also designed to teach, and they learn surprisingly quickly without realising it.

5) I hate math because I am not good at it. But It's not so much math in this game as it is logic. Also having gone through Cisco Networking in highschool the pattern 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048 was drilled into my head.