If you had an iPod Touch and didn't download Tris, you missed out: http://kotaku.com/5041686/iphone-tetris ... -app-store Stupid stupid stupid. Stupid him for not naming it something else from the get go. Stupid Tetris Company for not making their demands clear, or understanding that they have copyright on look and feel, design, codes and mechanics, but not concepts. Nevertheless. Tris was not superior to the EA version offered, and it felt really horrible to control, but it at least had online leaderboards. And was free for the layman. Something that the EA Tetris staff should've caught on to, in addition to multiplayer, long before release.
I live in hope that one day TTC realise the real reason why these clones exist and are popular: they provide something that the official games don't Texmaster and Heboris popular because they have extremely challenging single player modes that can't be played in the west. TNET, Quadra, Cultris and the like have competitive online multiplayer. Lockjaw has customisablity. Neave (though shit) can be played in a browser and without a facebook account. If TTC were shutting down games that were blatant clones but free then I'd be behind them. If someone basically remade Tetris Zone but with different graphics and as freeware I'd have no problem with TTC taking the games down. Fact is right now TTC need to realise that people play these games not simply because they're free versions (though obviously that helps) but because they actually fucking provide something which games released by TTC don't have. They arise from their own ineptitude to make decent games in the franchise. If they released TGM3 in the west for PC, even as a full-price game, I'm pretty certain that Heboris and Texmaster would pretty much just fall right off the radar. Most of us wouldn't think twice about dropping them if we could play the real thing without paying over $1500 for the privilege. But while Ti goes unreleased, and TTC don't provide anything remotely as good, we'll continue to play our fan-made clones, and there's not much they can really do to prevent it.
Anyone who was /shocked/ about this needs a reality check. This was more predictable than the Titanic movie.
Yeah really. Maybe a little shocked over tnet2 (over a decade without touching tnet, then all of a sudden they sic the lawyers on them), but definitely not shocked over a clone named "tris." If you ask me, they deserve it. I can definitely understand how that name could confuse the average consumer into thinking it was legitimate TTC product. I suppose it didn't help that some critics of EA's Iphone Tetris referred readers to "get Tris instead cuz its free omfg."
Reality check: most people don't know about TTC and think that any Tetris game after the game boy release is just a clone anyway, free or otherwise. There's also a lot of people that think Nintendo owns the rights to Tetris. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever read any news about TTC that didn't concern a takedown, threat or other kind of negative publicity. People either don't know about TTC at all or they know it as an intellectual property bully. Hey, that gives me an idea! If TTC decided to take down N-Blox, that would make 90% of the remaining Tetris players aware of TTC's existance! Now that's PR
they should do that anyway, out of principle. you can't let people go thinking N-Blox = tetris. that just isn't right. Rosti: actually Tetris Friends marathon can be played without a facebook account: http://www.tetrisfriends.com/ not to argue with you though, because i agreed with everything else you said. and i don't blame you for not knowing about it because google doesn't either. you can't even find a link to it at tetris.com.
That's the thing though. It's too late for TTC to make amends to unify the Tetris brand under a guideline that is completely ideal. The years that they've failed to create an end all version of Tetris has allowed so many clones, fangames, and radical versions to spring up. Some have garnered such a niche crowd that it's now become impossible to please everyone. There will be the TGM people that stick to TGM, the Cultris players that stick to Cultris, etc. There's no way to unify all the differing elements from the different games without causing chaos. The only thing that TTC can do now is to create their own niche crowd because there's no way they can win back everyone they've lost.
if TTC released a multiplayer game with customization anywhere close to what you'd find in Lockjaw or Heboris then everyone could play the way they wanted. with so many people playing tetris on facebook it wouldn't be hard at all to find a game against someone at your skill level. and then, TTC could look at the settings people are using and maybe get a better idea of what people want. most new players would probably start with the default settings, but after playing a while i think they would enjoy making little tweaks in the settings. i don't think simple descriptions like "sideways speed", "sideways delay", or "gravity" would be too hard for most people to figure out. then the more dedicated players could move on to things like "entry delay", "lock delay", and "T-spins on/off."
If you guys haven't read any of the comments that people are posting in the link that Phydeaux posted, I suggest you do a little reading for some entertainment.
That's the "everything is free and no one is responsible for anything, unreality check." Reality check: if one guy uses a trademark that is confusingly similar to another guy's trademark, it's infringement. Say I have a great little idea for a game. I call it Game A. I use my life's savings and invest in the game, all at my risk. After a year of great reviews, I release a follow up. Bam, I can buy a house now. My work, my risk, my house. Now someone else makes a game just like it and markets it under a very similar type of name (Game Alpha). People might not know the name of the corporation that markets Game A, even some of the people who download Game Alpha may be aware it's not my product, but it can still be very confusing to a lot of consumers. You'd hate me for filing trademark infringement against the Game Alpha developers? I remember way back when I didn't know anything about Tetris. I'd search download.com for a Tetris game. I didn't know or care if it was official product. I think people still have that attitude, "the one with the falling blocks..."
I have to do /........./ because I can't do italics in the title. And italics are necessary for sarcasm on the internets. Also cocks.
I'm not sure if you guys are responding to me at all, but if I wasn't clear, I meant that I couldn't believe anyone from TC would be shocked about this. It's a very understandable from an average casual player.
Now I'm confused. I said people shouldn't be shocked. Others say casuals could be shocked. Then I say that I meant TC people, to clarify. I don't see how sarcasm factors into it at all. And Phydeaux no offense intended to you, but really this is extremely predictable. If this were Steam or any other content delivery service, I'd expect the same thing to happen regardless of the clone's name.
