The question is worded wrong, it should be "When does a game loose it's clone status?" As a couple people mentioned, "anything other then the most popular title in a specific genre, is a clone", is actually pretty accurate. As far as I know, the word "clone" evolved from the word "like", and originated from the game Rogue in 1980. After Rogue was released every game that followed, that had the same style of gameplay, was known as a "Roguelike", until eventually, the genre was established to what is now known as a "dungeon crawler". Another example are games known as "Doom clones", after so many came out, the Doom clone name was dropped, and the genre was established, as what we all know as first person shooters. So basically, if a new and popular style of game comes around, there is a period of clones that follow, until that respective style of game becomes it's own genre.
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