Created?

There’s a Best Buy ad that was premiered at this year’s Super Bowl (Interesting: when I type “superbowl” MS Word suggests “super bowl” and “superb owl.”  I think next year I’m going to throw a Superb Owl party at the end of the NFL season.  Of course, when you go with superb owl, MS Word suggests “super bowl.”).  In this commercial they show a number of people who were instrumental in bringing technologies to mobile devices.  Prior to Best Buy’s own pitch the commercials show the Bettner brothers who say, “We created Words With Friends.”  Created?

Nothing about this is new or original.  Scrabble knock offs are not new.  Playing a Scrabble knock off online against another person isn’t new.  I’ve done that for many years on websites like itsyourturn.com.  On those older gaming sites you’d make a move and then the site would generate an email to your opponent telling her that it was her turn to move.  All these guys did was to replace the older web interface with Flash for Facebook, Java for Android devices, and Objective-C for iOs.  Then they replaced emails with push notifications.  Creative?

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: taking something that already exists and porting it to a new platform is now creating?  Have we as a culture lowered the bar for creativity that much?