Most of the articles about Flappy Bird are frustrating. Everybody assumes that the developer somehow "hacked" the system, refusing to believe a phenomenon where sometimes just everything aligns and makes you successful.
What I find even pathetic is that people trying to explain how Flappy Bird hacked it's way by the means available to everybody - like botnets posting reviews.
I think in the reality it's just this: Sometimes people or products happen to be at the right time at the right place.
Think about celebrities. Are the most popular actors that much outstanding from many others? Or musicians? Or artists? Most of them just happen to be caught to the perfect storm and they shine. Think about an actor who was in few movies before, but this time he is the Top Gun - and now we have Tom Cruise. What He did in Top Gun that he didn't in Risky Business?
We like to believe that we live in a meritocratic society but most of the time glamour is about luck. I am not even sure that there is anyone or any product that is so outstanding that millions of people celebrate it for it's meritocratic qualities.
That's why sometimes an old song becomes a hit many years later, like the song Beggin' became popular again 40 years after it's first debut. Did Madcon somehow made an outstanding cover for first time in 40 years?
Sometimes it becomes a meme, like Three Wolf Moon becoming one after a review on amazon. Was this review first of it's kind or something really that outstanding? I don't think so.
Flappy Bird was caught by the perfect storm, that's it. The game had the qualities, just like many other games, and some chaotic chain of events placed the game to a position where it can run for the glamour.
Outliers is a fun book about this type of stuff. It's not that the creator "hacked" the system for Flappy Bird -- all signs point to him being a super authentic game designer who just made his game, and for lack of a better word "lucked" into all the right circumstances. However, it's still interesting to try to determine which factors played a role in something that clearly had such a non-standard trajectory. Everything that goes "viral" has to have some catalyst that created the opportunity to go viral. Nobody knew about Flappy Bird in May, hence it could not go viral. Something changed in December and that is what is so fascinating.
You are right.
We are naturally pattern seeking and everyone is trying to explain this complex phenomenon with causality. Is highly improbable that someone will know the real cause (probably is multi-causal), and more important, knowing it does not guarantee that it will work again.
What you can do is ride the wave, looks like we have a new flappy in town: http://www.topappcharts.com/568868771/app-details-adventures.... Currently at #5, now is time to start explaining how they got there, too :)
What I find even pathetic is that people trying to explain how Flappy Bird hacked it's way by the means available to everybody - like botnets posting reviews.
I think in the reality it's just this: Sometimes people or products happen to be at the right time at the right place.
Think about celebrities. Are the most popular actors that much outstanding from many others? Or musicians? Or artists? Most of them just happen to be caught to the perfect storm and they shine. Think about an actor who was in few movies before, but this time he is the Top Gun - and now we have Tom Cruise. What He did in Top Gun that he didn't in Risky Business?
We like to believe that we live in a meritocratic society but most of the time glamour is about luck. I am not even sure that there is anyone or any product that is so outstanding that millions of people celebrate it for it's meritocratic qualities.
That's why sometimes an old song becomes a hit many years later, like the song Beggin' became popular again 40 years after it's first debut. Did Madcon somehow made an outstanding cover for first time in 40 years?
Sometimes it becomes a meme, like Three Wolf Moon becoming one after a review on amazon. Was this review first of it's kind or something really that outstanding? I don't think so.
Flappy Bird was caught by the perfect storm, that's it. The game had the qualities, just like many other games, and some chaotic chain of events placed the game to a position where it can run for the glamour.