hah or when rovio released angry birds halloween and the ratinGs where swamped with people being angry that rovio copied & stole from the angry birds original.. not even realizing they where the actual developers.. ahh well crybabies..
You may not like the way they force those "junks" into the game, but this is how marketing works. Many people here are also guilty of creating ads and plaster 'em everywhere to promote their games, but at the same time makes people feels like installing some ad-block program. Game quality =/= successful game. these marketing plays a big part to bring in the money. The major companies doesn't want only games with good quality. They want games that can be made into a franchise. Assassin's Creed spawned 7 sequels and many other tie-in products in less than 4 years, just because the first game was a moderate success. The various in-game advertisements in MGS4 are just another example. those t-shirt they throw into the "special edition" of some console game which makes the guy who wore 'em a walking advertisement on the street, the Gears of war action figures that are displayed on shelves which entice the friends or cousins who enter your room, the various Resident Evil movies etc which keep getting made despite the quality etc. By making a Resident Evil movie, Capcom, the actors, the movie studios etc all gets the earning and the exposure. Its a win-win situation. On the surface, they just rake in cash for the companies. Go past the surface, and you will realize they also serves to promote the games. Who knows, maybe Rovio already had an unfinished yet unreleased game now, but they choose to focus on Angry Birds' success for now since the momentum is very strong currently. Rovio is still a mobile-centric company. They can't take the risk of handling multiple franchises yet. Yes, they may seems like a one trick pony here, but they are still catering the gamers, such as new contents. Just yesterday, I read on Gamasutra that they have obtained a license from Medio who will provide analytics to Rovio to enhance its understanding of its players, to enhance the gameplay. Perhaps we should learn a thing or two from Angry Birds, and by that I don't mean ripping off ideas or anything.
I think that's nonsense... the rules are different for Angry Birds because they're at the top. It's like quantum physics in reverse. This is not some holy grail of gaming... I, like many others, think they got lucky... and the in-game marketing shows me that Rovio is desperately trying to not be a one-hit wonder. The game didn't launch with all that marketing junk. So, the game I liked was ruined. I had the choice of updating the app and including the marketing junk... or forever seeing the number one over my App Store icon... reminding me to UPDATE... UPDATE... UPDATE! The third option was deleting the app, which would waste my money. ...and it wasn't some vocal minority. It was like every other post that complained about the game's marketing junk. If an indie developer gets like two bad reviews, the app downward spirals... because then people start to avoid the app. Once again, for Angry Birds, it's like Quantum physics in reverse. The rules are different because it's a #1 game. It's like gravity, pulling it upwards. You don't even have to read the reviews to buy it. Because the game is in the Top Ten, people can purchase it from the main iTunes App Store page. ...and I'm surprised that so many people defend this game. There's no depth here. It's bowling with birds. Yeah sure, it's causal and cute... it's popular because it's fun for all age groups. Mommy can give junior the iPad and it's like a babysitter. Adults can have something mindless to do while they wait for the train/bus. But after a year, and out of thousands of developers, nothing better has come along? I don't think that's a good thing.
Think again, even Spy Mouse has been displaced by the awesomeness of Jetpack Joyride! (in my Store, anyway...)
Angry Birds is back in first place... amazing! ...and there is an important quality that this game has. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It has humor and silly elements. Most of my games are very serious. Even my new game is kinda serious too. When I realized that, I was like... whoa... maybe there is something to this Angry Bird thing. ...but I'm still not happy about the advertisements on the pause menu. I like that there has been more variety at the top spot. That's better for the overall health of the community.
It's interesting that this thread has created so much discussion because in reality, this isn't the least bit significant. Combined with the other versions of Angry Birds it's still the #1 selling game, but who really cares? Theres no doubt that the game is in-humanly addictive, however for my own well being I've never flung a bird.
I think this thread is quite important... for developers... which is why it's a popular thread. Why is Angry Birds popular? Why are other games have trouble knocking Angry Birds off its perch? That's a good discussion. There's much to learn here. By learning what works and what doesn't is how we can improve. Additionally, my opinion of Rovio has changed recently. I learned more about the company and it has changed my perspective.
The first question is incredibly easy to answer in my opinion: It's very easy to get into and has a VERY slow increase in difficulty while still being rewarding. It has no real time commitment and yet again, is very rewarding even with a single fling of a bird. It's a game but there is no stress involved, yet it's rewarding. As a matter of fact quite a few people I did some research with explained that they find it relaxing to play AB. It has very easy to like graphics which, on top, don't polarize or give cause for discussion. Its graphics are cute but cool the same time and thus work for all age groups. Last but not least, we all like to tear things apart every now and then - this is an added psychological bonus imo. You can destroy things without feeling bad about it. The game play, to me, makes sense. If something falls down, I did expect it to fall down. Again, this adds to the whole not stress but relaxing aspect (even though this part is not actively registered imo). As to the why it's hard to knock it off its perk - well it's like with celebrities: Once you have the attention and the spotlight people will talk about you and you are everywhere but then also, like someone else mentioned, it's the mario of iphone games. Since it WAS so easy to get into and since it has so little time commitment a lot of people started playing iphone games WITH angry birds. And your first is always the one you stick the longest with or at least always go back to. (As long as you can..) What does surprise me though is that they haven't added any new birds (minus the eagle)..to be honest, it starts getting really repetitive now and I can't remember when I played the last time.
I think AB will fade on the App Store at a very slow rate. I'm seeing a trend now where if a new game gets public interest at the start then if will go to number 1 and stay until that interest dies down. Then AB goes back to the top spot. My guess is that this trend will become more regular and at a guess AB will gradually find it harder to get that spot back. Eventually a new game will come along to capture peoples imagination to the point where that will become the new AB - but this may be a rare thing. It may take another 1 to 2 years before AB goes away for good. You have to take your hat off to them because AB is the most successful game of all time. We could argue all day how it's a rip off or how much we loath it but the hard facts show that the public casual crowd love that game. I guess Fruit Ninja is the same, coming in second best, which is more or less always in the top 5.
Trend mixup! At present, App store trend is blending with various interest by peoples, instead of Bird, Ninja, Fruits etc. Peoples are searching something different to enjoy. May be it will continue for a long period of time & I guess, AB will lost its position day by day very slowly & fall down from Top 10!
People are moving! Now people are moving with puzzles game like Words with friends, Tetris, hanging with friends etc.
My personal view is that since there are almost a 100 million users of iphone in total and angry bird is downloaded almost 400 million times, so it simply reached the saturation point I think. This is my view, may be other apps were better than that...
People used to try some new games on the iPhone, as it is already captured the paid games market and may be the maximum percentage of users have played it, so it's not a craze any more. The developers have to either update it or bring something new for the iPhone users.
Angry Birds is back to number 2, with Angry Birds Seasons at 6. We've had a ton of disrupters that have stolen the number 1 spot for weeks but once the sales/ release hype dies down, AB always remains holding a steady draw and eventually returns to the top spot. Edit: back to number 1.