Games maker Rovio has tweeted recently that its latest game Angry Birds Space has been downloaded 10m times in three days. It’s not the first time Angry Birds has drawn such a large audience – since the game was first developed for Apple’s iOS in December 2009, it has spawned holiday versions, cuddly toys and theme parks, which are to open in Finland and the UK.
An infographic by AYTM Market Research on Visual.ly examines the global appeal of Angry Birds, as well as providing facts and figures surrounding the game, such as gamers play Angry Birds 200m minutes per day.
The infographic also cites Michael Chorost, PhD, as saying in Psychology Today that fundamental elements of the game design is what helps make Angry Birds so appealing. For instance, the game is easy to play and rewarding. “We get a primitive pleasure in blowing $h!t up.” Couple these elements with the game being realistic – “the physics of the game are just what you’d expect” – and its humour, and you have a formula for an addictive game.
There are even physiological aspects at play when it comes to tackling the green pigs in Angry Birds. The anticipation of reward puts players’ dopamine systems into overdrive, which makes players compulsively want to know what happens next when they fire off the next bird.
