I guess the one main reason why Angry Birds is so popular is this: Even my father, with hands as thick as a tree trunk can easily play it. He plays Angry Birds like a lunatic and fascinating to see, he tries to do all levels with 3 stars and stuff. I would have stopped long ago... (Before that he played Space Invaders on my Nintendo DS, destroying the controlls in the process...the A Button and steering left/right doesn't work properly anymore, hehe)
I thought it was Doodle Jump. http://www.appannie.com/doodle-jump-be-warned-insanely-addictive/ranking/#view=best-ranks ...and they also helped with the 99¢ standard... http://appshopper.com/games/doodle-jump The game seems to have always been 99¢. Ha... that's simply amazing to me... 47 updates just for 99¢. What if the rest of the software industry worked this way? The only thing that I can think that comes close to this in the software world, not counting Free and/or Open Source projects, is Windows XP. Released in 2001, it's still being updated... perhaps all the way to 2014... http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=10&y=7&C2=1173 Outside of iOS, I don't know of too many games like that... except maybe Guild Wars. Heh, I started playing in 2004 and my account is still good today... apparently the game is still being updated. But generally, people like to find value... especially in this economy. Wow, a hit game that's only 99¢. People today feel like they need a mobile phone, so that's not going to get cut. But those $50-$60 console games, that's expendable. So, that seems more like the right place at the right time. And now, timing is once again important for Rovio... http://www.businessinsider.com/zynga-angry-birds-talks-2011-8 There's a rumor that Zynga is interested in Rovio.
For those who are interested, there's some pretty interesting articles out there on the psychology behind why angry birds was such a success. There were many external factors of course, timing and the boom of the iPhone being among them. But those are uncontrollable factors and it makes my skin crawl when people blame that alone. There are other factors involved which are, in short, that Angry Birds perfectly balances almost every psychological factor that makes a game "fun" and "addicting" in the minds of most gamers. For a very in depth analysis of this you can read this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703945904575644940111605862.html?KEYWORDS=angry+birds And for a way you can directly apply these techniques to your games this new article is great (though not in the best English): http://indiedevstories.com/2011/08/10/game-theory-applied-the-flow-channel/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+idevblogaday+%28iDevBlogADay%29 Applying these concepts into your game is easier said than done, but pulling it off well is what makes a game addicting and fun to everybody and it keeps them playing long enough to tell their friends. This is an excellent iPhone app (written by the guy who wrote "Art of Game Design") to help improve the quality of any of our games: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agd-lenses/id385531319?mt=8 (and it's free!)
Still Failed! "Angry Birds" still failed to recover its position & get No. 1. How long it last? I hope for its success to recover its position.
Its Back! Wow! Angry Birds returns in its previous position! Now this is the fact that, how long it can hold this position ater the recovery. What do you think?
Dat hate. The bitterness in this thread is overwhelming. Can't wait for another year to go by for people to start hating on Fruit Ninja, Cut The Rope and Tiny Wings.
I like Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope and Tiny Wings. I even liked Angry Birds before the Rovio marketing junk hit the app.
marketing junk? maybe i am missing something.. but i only see rovio related product ads which is completly fine in my book..
That's not fine with me. I'm trying to think when it was ever OK. The only thing I can think of right now is Blades of Steel by Konami. I liked the half-time show, where I could play the mini version of Gradius. Oh, and I liked destroying the advertisement signs in Exteel. This is different. I find it very annoying... The mighty Eagle? Gift this app? Rate this game? Buy Seasons? Hey... how about Rio? When I see all that junk, I think it reenforces the notion that Rovio is a one-trick pony. After I saw all of those negative reviews about the marketing junk, I'm surprised that the app didn't drop out of the rankings right there.
Well, it was marketing that bring angry to where it is. The reason for it to stay this long on spot #1 is due to marketing too. For it to reach #1, i would have imagine, they did a lot of marketing. Once it reaches top. People starts buying Angry Birds merchandise. In my country, can you imagine how many Angry Bird t-shirts I see on the street? And the iPhone case, and iPad case of Angry Bird. Lots of teenagers has angry birds keychains on their bags. With this amount of exposure. Its no wonder a new buyers of iPhone/iPad will automatically tuned to think Angry Birds is the best thing for the iOS device. And at such a no-brainer price of 0.99 and a promised of 100 upon 100 hours of entertainment.
lol you list a generic feature list that most proper games have and that annoys you? gift the app button? rate game game promots? check out our other games.. i mean what the heck.. every dev should put thoose in..
I have to agree with Photics, I also found that recent iterations of AB's have taken the advertising side of things to an annoying level. I have no problem witht the standard rate, gifting, more games..but. The pause screen becoming a big advertising board 'that's slow to load' was one step to far for me. Also those sour faced plushy birds are horrible compared to my care bears
yeah on the same spot one can only shake his head and point out that most of thoose "loud" users are crybabies.. and that there is a button to disable thoose rovio ads.. but in all the rage one can ignore the fact that they actualy did a very good job in implementing ads into their product without being really annoying.. well if course i never want to see photics do cross promotion between his games or products but ohh wait.. he even carries "ads" in his footer.. bummer.. ;D maybe some of you should relax a bit and take a closer look how rovio actualy does what they do.. one might learn something..
This is a good lesson in showing the major difference between the vocal minority (those that bother to write reviews) and the quiet majority (the rest of the world that buys your game). If you can make the quiet majority happy, you don't have to bother with the vocal minority of cry babies. I was just talking with a 10 year old last night and he was talking about how much he wanted an Angry Birds stuffed animal "sooo badly." It is truly amazing how well they have marketed themselves. For these younger generations, Angry Birds will be as well known as Mario and Luigi are for us.
