In December, of 2009, a mobile game made it’s way to the Apple Store. The game did not arrive with trumpets blaring or a red carpet in its wake but after a few reviews the gaming world knew that the King had arrived. Angry Birds is a mobile app designed by Rovio Entertainment. It features hand sketched birds with different special abilities. The goal of the game is to, using touchscreen controls, fling these birds at increasingly complicated rickshaw forts in order to knock them down and destroy the piggy inhabitants. In a little over one year of market time the game had sold over 12 million copies. Many folks who have not played the game will ask: Why? Why is Angry Birds so popular? What does it do so great? Well, let’s talk about that.
1. Angry Birds embraces deceptive simplicity.
When you sit down and play the game for the first time you will probably catch on pretty quickly to everything that the game offers. The touch screen controls practically gravitate to your fingers and the objective is obvious even without reading any text. The game is easy to understand and even easier to play. Children of all ages have mastered this game. Within minutes even the most confused player will be well on their way to an enjoyable session.
2. Angry Birds developed into a franchise.
When corporations look at possible games, toys, or movies to develop they think in terms of franchise potential. Nobody wants to lay a golden egg and then walk away. That is why Rovio Entertainment immediately utilized their fame and fortune to become even more entrenched into the public mindset. Since their explosion of popularity on the iOS Marketplace, Angry Birds has become a set of plushie toys, a series of board games, a slew of songs, and even a series of junk food products. There are even theme parks all over the world dedicated to the franchise. This is the sort of public saturation that keeps strong products on top of the hill. Look at Pokemon in its heyday as an apt comparison. Angry Birds even has its own cartoon and potential feature film in the cards.
3. What rises to the top tends to float
When Angry Birds became such a huge success it was easy to be leery of it. So many apps make it to the top of the charts nowadays only to vanish in seemingly no time at all. Look at Flappy Bird for example. However, the truth is that more often the not the best products make their way to the top of the iOS Store and once there–they stick. Angry Birds hit the market as an affordable game that was both polished and addictive. There was no reason not to purchase it if you had an iOS device.
As you can see, the Angry Birds empire is only going to be growing here in the future. This bird has laid a golden egg and its owner, Rovio Entertainment, seems determined to keep squeezing more gold out. This franchise has been handled with the sort of deft care that is all too often mishandled by poor companies. With the constant development and care given to it, Angry Birds should be roosting at the top of the public mind for a long, long, time.
