Flappy Bird, Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block – Oh My
One indie developer (Dong Nguyen as of Feb. 4, 2014) has the #1, #4 and #9 top free apps in the iOS app store.
This is astonishing given that the three apps are so frustrating, use pixelated graphics and probably took a week for Dong Nguyen to create. If we could all be so lucky. What a return on investment for a few weeks of development time.
Another thing contributing to the apps popularity is the desire for people to write the most funny, depressing or rage quit review. Flappy Bird alone has over 450,000 reviews!
Common consensus is that the apps are so frustrating and simple that people immediately ask their friends to download them and try, and thus they have spread virally via word of mouth. It also helps that a popular YouTube caster demoed Flappy Bird. Won’t post the link as it has some bad language. Note to self: Make mobile game really difficult, addictive and mind control the user to try just one more time.
Now we must all prepare for the flood of pixelated side scroller apps to overwhelm the iOS and Android stores…
Jeff Johnson (