Flappy Bird - a simple, but certainly not easy mobile game, where "tapping" is the main thing. Tapping makes a bird rise slightly before quickly falling.
The game asks only that you pilot the bird through narrow passageways between two green, Super Mario-style pipes. A point is awarded for every pipe you pass. But touch anything and the cute bird tumbles beak-first into the ground: game over.
Strategy, Tools & Numbers
Highlights & Strategy
Psychology
Gamification
1. Learn by playing
The old games' 8-bit style looks brings back memories. At the beginning of the game, the only instruction is to “tap.” Many people tapped once and found that their bird instantly hit the floor. From the very first few seconds of the game, you learn the consequence of doing things or not doing things.
Flappy Bird is a perversely difficult game. For most of the players, it takes multiple times of dying before scoring even a single point. It lets you learn by PLAYING.
2. Difficulty
Such super-difficult games are called masocore among the videogamers.
Masocore games are characterized by trial-and-error gameplay. Combined with repetition and progression, the intense difficulty of masocore games often produces a feeling of profound accomplishment.
Many players have expressed their simultaneous hatred for and commitment to the game—“I Hate Flappy Bird, But I Can’t Stop Playing It”
3. Humour and irony
From an unheroic name "Flappy Bird", to overall design and “punch to the face” sounds when you die.
4. Simplicity
The simplicity of design and controls. To play, all you have to do is "tap".
The Law of Diffusion of Innovation
Adoption of a new idea, behavior, or product is a process. When promoting innovation to a target population, it is important to understand the characteristics of the target population that will help or hinder the adoption of the innovation.
1. Innovators - These are people who want to be the first to try the innovation.Very little, if anything, needs to be done to appeal to this population.
2. Early Adopters - These are people who represent opinion leaders. They enjoy leadership roles and embrace change opportunities. They do not need the information to convince them to change.
3. Early Majority - They do adopt new ideas before the average person. They typically need to see evidence that the innovation works before they are willing to adopt it. Strategies to appeal to this population include success stories and evidence of the innovation's effectiveness.
4. Late Majority - These people are skeptical of change, and will only adopt an innovation after it has been tried by the majority. Strategies to appeal to this population include information on how many other people have tried the innovation and have adopted it successfully.
5. Laggards - These people are bound by tradition and very conservative. They are very skeptical of change and are the hardest group to bring on board. Strategies to appeal to this population include statistics, fear appeals, and pressure from people in the other adopter groups.
Last few words
After Flappy Bird was taken down App Store and Google Play people started selling phones with the game installed for outrageous sums on eBay.
One of them started an eBay auction at $650. Within hours, the price has already jumped to $99,900, with 74 bids placed.
Flappy Bird became an instant legend, amassing at least 50M downloads and nearly 16M tweets.
Many developers had tried to copy its success. Almost none of them succeded.
Check Other Viral Case Studies
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