What do you mean, live with the fact? Believe it or not, it doesn't keep me up at night that Angry Birds is so popular. This is what I mean about getting worked up. Though I find the game to be below average, I didn't leave any review. By definition, that's what indifferent people do. You wouldn't be able to track my opinion by looking at stars. Maybe that's the case for a lot of other people, too. As I said, it's impossible to tell, but there are some hints: If you look at any game, you'll notice that 5- and 1- star reviews dominate while 2-, 3-, and 4-star reviews are in the distinct minority. Once again, you are not employing the statistics you cite correctly. You write about the high number of positive reviews while comparing AB to other games, but you don't make an effort to find out what proportion of total downloads that number represents. We can have a rough idea for AB, but most game developers don't release download numbers so it's pretty much a moot point. To reiterate, I don't deny that the game has huge numbers of fans. You're clearly one of them, and are partisan to the point that negative commentary raises your hackles. That's great. But aside from making this point, which I never disputed, you haven't addressed the only thing I said: that long-term sales momentum is strongly linked to visibility and popularity. So essentially, you're talking to yourself.
lol. Sorry, you are mistaken. I'm pretty sure COD:Zombies has had a great deal of success on the top paid games chart. But I guess that is just a brief moment of insight amongst the drooling mass of "non-hardcore" gamers who quickly return to their stupid little "booby games" after they buy and play the "real" game. The whole notion that you have to like games like Halo and COD to be "hardcore" (as though being hardcore is something we should all be striving for) is hilarious (not to mention incredibly childish). Frankly I'd say a person who can only find enjoyment in FPS games isn't much of a gamer at all...
Ok, but here's a hint for you. If you look at the Angry birds reviews, you will see that there are about 2.5 times as many 4 star reviews as 1 star reviews for the current version. Which seems to imply that the game is being received very well by its purchasers who have chosen to leave a review. You can postulate that the vast majority of users find it just dull enough to dislike it but not quite bad enough to leave a review, but there really isn't any evidence of that outside this thread. You know, that's the second time you have talked about how upset I am that you don't like the game. Do you think if you say it enough times, it will become true? I don't care if you like the game or not. THe only reason I care if anyone else likes the game is that more purchases makes it more likely that there will be more levels released. Other then that, why would I care what you think of the game? Allow me to explain how this works. We are on a discussion forum. Someone posts an opinion or some news, and other people post their comments or reactions. Sometimes people agree, and sometimes they disagree. In this case, I disagree with you. I'm not angry or upset that you have a different opinion. I haven't insulted you, called you names or belittled you. I haven't agreed with you, but wouldn't this be a boring board if we all agreed on everything? Actually, I have addressed it several times in each of my posts. Long term sales momentum is indeed strongly linked to visibility and popularity. But that is not what you said. What you actually said was: Which is slightly different and not true. Now you are saying "visibility and popularity", before your position was "hype, rather then merit". If we assume that popular games are popular because purchasers find merit in them, then you are actually saying the opposite of your original opinion. Unless you meant "merit" in some objective sense, but I would take the position that "merit" is in the eye of the beholder, and that it is impossible to objectively judge the "merit" of a game. This may well be true because it doesn't seem like you are reading my posts too carefully.
I don't label myself hardcore or casual or whatever, but i like COD and Halo and yet I still find AB, DJ, and Spider all pretty interesting and engaging. When you make blanket statements like that you are just begging to be proved wrong. mlkaufman is making good points in my opinion. holymadness is deflecting and using big words to try and make his/her argument sound.
I think there's a lot of merit in the suggestion that a lot of less experienced iPhone gamers download and rate Angry Birds or to put it another way, that people tend to come across and rate Angry Birds early in their iPhone gaming careers. For most people who have a newly acquired iPhone, they're going to start off downloading apps by picking whatever games are highly rated. Angry Birds was #1 for a considerable time, so it's not much of a stretch to say that for many users this was their first paid game download. Rating numbers are a funny thing, in that they are not absolute. Ratings only have meaning when one thing is being compared to other things. To someone who's new to iPhone gaming, their comparison is probably to apps that ran on their older and simpler phones or PDAs. It's pretty easy for any well-made iPhone game to look like a 5-star in this situation. It's not until you start experiencing more games that you start to be able to make better evaluations. Games that seemed fantastic when you started are now being measured against a higher bar and what looked like a 5 might only be a 3 or a 4. Very few people go back and re-rate apps though, so the original ratings tend to stand. I'm not saying every rating is like this, only that there is a general tendency for ANY game in the top 10 to benefit from free 5-star ratings from newcomer gamers. It's not unique to Angry Birds, but Angry Birds does benefit more from it than any other game due to being on top for so long. Whether you like the game or not, I think the developers have done a great job releasing updates and deserve success with it. They've clearly put a lot of work into polishing it and been responsive to the community, moreso than a lot of other games I could name.
You're missing out on nothing. Since when did the majority of iDevice gamers have good taste in gaming anyways? I'm not surprised something silly like Angry Birds, Doodle Jump or the Creeps would stay on the top for so long, especially when they have the lowest production values and highest repetitiveness. It's like most people have a fetish for simple pointless games that have a gameplay time of 2 minutes at a time.
It has nothing to do with the game being on a more capable system and in HD. The game (Gerbil Physics) is a 99 cent download on Xbox like that, like Critter Crunch, is entirely possible on the small screen. I'm talking game mechanics and overall quality. Angry Birds is just not that great of a game. It's a nice distraction, but the game itself is weak and there's shoddy game design all over the place. I'm entitled to my opinion, just like you are.
Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Rolando, etc. Do you know how many "Doodle jump" games there are in the app store? I can't understand why people like these types of games. I guess I'm one of the few out there that is sick of quicky, cutesy stuff.
thats pretty much exactly what I have a "fetish" for on my phone. If I want to sit and play a game all night I'll do it on the PS3 or my PC... and frankly, I can't think of any games more repetitive than the average FPS...
The problem is that you keep presenting your opinion as if it was objective truth. Generally speaking, statements of fact are not considered opinions. For example, if what you mean is that an objective outside observer would agree that there is "shoddy game design all over the place", then you are wrong by any reasonable objective definition of good game design. If the purpose of game design is to design a game that will captivate and entertain a large group of people, then this game has excellent game design. If the purpose of game design is to design a game that will sell a lot of copies, then this game has excellent game design. If, however, you define game design as the process of "coming up with a game that cherdman will like" then I guess you are right, but that's a fairly limited and subjective definition.
I don't have any problem at all with somebody not liking Angry Birds. I do take issue though with the constantly repeated (in this thread even) claim that the only people that do like Angry Birds are the "casual" gamers and that the "hardcore" gamers who really take their gaming "seriously" don't have any interest in games like AB, Doodle Jump, Fruit Ninja...whatever. I've owned a console system from every gen since the Atari 2600. I currently own a PS3, a Wii, a DS, a Gamecube, GBA, a PC and a Laptop as well as the iphone. I like Angry Birds. I also spent a lot of time in the arcades back in the late 70's and early 80's...I appreciate simple, elegantly designed games - right from Pac-Man and Space Invaders through to Tilt To Live and Osmos. I think those sorts of games simply work better on a platform like the iphone than the next overblown military FPS. You don't like games like Angry Birds, thats cool - but don't for a second think its becuase your "hardcore-ness" gives you some special insight into videogame truth.
Just because something is 'popular' doesn't mean that it is also 'good', in any meaningful objective sense. Likewise, just because something isn't 'popular' doesn't mean that it is also 'bad.' As someone on here already pointed out, if people genuinely don't know of anything better, they will think that what they have is 'the best.' Lady Gaga's popularity does not mean her music is 'good', for example.
this is of course true. Its also true that just becuase something is popular doesn't mean that its bad.
Good and bad are subjective. Popularity usually indicates that a segment of people think something is good, even if it's a group of teenage girls (or whoever likes Lady Gaga) or some demographic that others can't identify with.
Are you sure this place isn't called touchyArcade? ...waits... ...silence... ...waits... ...silence... ...waits... ...silence... I'm here all weekend folks! This is also very true.
Angry Birds is a fun and addictive game. At least for some. If the OP doesn't "get it," then it's just not the game for him, as the Lite version alone has a ton of content to form an opinion. The paid version has tons more levels, really for 99 cents it has so much to offer that it's silly. It's not a perfect game (sometimes the basically random nature can be irritating) but it's a fun game that uses the touch screen well and can be played for 2 minutes at a time or for 2 hours at a time. And that's exactly what an iPhone game should be.
