Adding to the laundry list of complaints and negative attention that Apple’s app store has received, the game “shaker” has been pulled from the iPhone App Store, by Tetris Co, because it apparently too closely resembles Tetris.
A message to every iTunes app developer out there: If you are planning on writing an application that is even slightly reminiscent of a popular game owned by a major publisher (especially one involving colorful, geometric falling shapes), think again. As the brainiacs at Phunkware recently found out: You are wasting your precious nerdy time.
A game called Shaker has been pulled from the iTunes App Store for being “too much like Tetris,” reports arstechnica.com. Shaker, basically Tetris with an alcoholic twist, boasted a few unique features such as block style options, accelerometer support for shaking to change block orientation, and martini recipes for good scores. This gave the Tetris Company a hangover, and serious deja-vu. Back in August, another clone called “Tris”, fell to the same fate.
Therefore developers, heed our warning. Give Apple something they’ve never seen before, not just variations on a proven successful past-time. Apparently, the idea behind the iTunes app store is Apple’s definition of innovation, so it looks like it doesn’t matter what consumers want to see. Here’s to hoping that Apple starts listening more to us and less to big corporations about what can, and cannot reside inside the app store.
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2 Comments to “Tetris Co. Pulls “Shaker” Application From App Store”
I totally mistook this for Tetris. Particularly the falling groups of circles being different colors. And I always drink when I played Tetris in the past.
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I don’t know how anyone could mistake this game for the real tetris! That seems so ridiculous!
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