4. It pretty much made me re-examine my whole life. We're all just flappy birds flying between potentially copyright infringing pipe when you think about, you know what I mean?
yea, people who contributed to flappy bird's success are sooo stupid. They should be ashamed of themselves for the damage they've done.
now if you'll excuse me I'm going to buy a game I've never played for 60 dollars because the reviews said it was good. And I will buy a 2nd controller for my shiny new xbox one since it's technologically incapable of using my existing controllers.
I hadn't heard about it until every tech site started running stories about the guy pulling it from the app store. Why this is a story, I don't know. I also don't know why people are so fascinated by the entire thing.
3. It was free and people were talking about it. I was annoyed with it initially but it IS a vertically oriented, one-button game which is kind of the type of thing I like on iOS for quick spurts of play when I'm waiting for a bus or something. Its dumb but it was inoffensive about being dumb and while it threw ads in my face it didn't nag me to play it more or rate it or buy anything.
4. Not really, but as this Polygon piece expresses, it really hit home how no one taste-maker in the industry can predict what is going to happen next or what is going to be popular.
5. No, but they may not have been playing games for as obscenely long as some of us so are maybe a little more enamored with things that we find junky.
3. Many people I know are playing it and it was fun to try and beat high scores. There might not be any real progression, but that doesn't really matter. A one tap button that works as intended is nothing to get upset about. The simple mechanics work perfectly fine. It's about getting the highest score possible and it succeeds in engaging people.
4. No
5. No. It has nothing to do with mobile gamers or their tastes. I think people need to get off their high horses.
6. It's really not as hard as people seem to think. It's not unfair and the mechanics are simple yet challenging enough that it encourages people to keep trying.
3. Many people I know are playing it and it was fun to try and beat high scores. There might not be any real progression, but that doesn't really matter. A one tap button that works as intended is nothing to get upset about. The simple mechanics work perfectly fine. It's about getting the highest score possible and it succeeds in engaging people
This is all that ever should have been said about Flappy Bird
I hadn't heard about it until I read that the guy was taking it down because of some kind of drama. I don't play mobile games so I'll continue to ignore it like everything else.
Another mobile fad that people are Reading way too much into. It's the internet meme of video games and the only interesting part about it is how the creator reacted to its popularity.
Calling someone an idiot for enjoying something that you don't enjoy yourself, especially when it comes to something as inoffensive as Flappy Birds, is real stupid. Just, why?
There's really no reason to call the people that play and like Flappy Bird idiots. That's the mentality of the sort of people Patrick, Alex, and Jim were railing against in Bombin' in the A.M. today.
Edit: If your wondering why he's doing the pow pow jokes. He's making fun of another youtube user.
There's something about ElPres I genuinely love. I'd hate to actually speak or spend any time with him - but as an internet personality... There's gold in them hills.
There's really no reason to call the people that play and like Flappy Bird idiots. That's the mentality of the sort of people Patrick, Alex, and Jim were railing against in Bombin' in the A.M. today.
Could you elaborate a little on what they were saying? I'm interested in light of Patrick's weird remarks in last week's Worth Reading, saying things like,
"I haven't played, nor do I intend to play, Flappy Bird. This comes from the person who, paragraphs ago, was encouraging people to experiment outside their wheelhouse, but Flappy Bird seems skippable... Ian Bogost seems to nail the existential crisis many people are having while playing ...You'll read no better analysis of a seemingly terrible game."
It struck me as oddly judgmental, and that he'd be the one arguing the opposite of what you're saying.
There's really no reason to call the people that play and like Flappy Bird idiots. That's the mentality of the sort of people Patrick, Alex, and Jim were railing against in Bombin' in the A.M. today.
Could you elaborate a little on what they were saying? I'm interested in light of Patrick's weird remarks in last week's Worth Reading, saying things like,
"I haven't played, nor do I intend to play, Flappy Bird. This comes from the person who, paragraphs ago, was encouraging people to experiment outside their wheelhouse, but Flappy Bird seems skippable... Ian Bogost seems to nail the existential crisis many people are having while playing ...You'll read no better analysis of a seemingly terrible game."
It struck me as oddly judgmental, and that he'd be the one arguing the opposite of what you're saying.
There's a difference between choosing to not play a game or recommending others not play a game, and flat-out insulting those that do choose to play a game. It's the difference between "I don't think Flappy Bird is worth my time or yours," and "Only fucking dumbasses play Flappy Bird. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
There is no crisis to be had. If someone is having that kind of reaction to something like flappy bird, they have much bigger issues to concern themselves with.
Patrick is extremely judgmental and always has been. He will go on until the end of time to defend some indie trash because it supposedly has some deep message. He will defend shitty games with piss poor mechanics because they are indie. This whole trend is terrible. He is at the opposite end of the spectrum as the call of duty bros. Douche bags on both sides. We need more call of duty games like we need more shitty indie games. At least call of duty is mechanically sound.
Flappy bird does not deserve the attention it got, but it's just about perfect in terms of mechanics. The art might be ripped off and the gameplay style as well, but it works. People are losing their minds over this one example because it's popular. There is nothing more to it. No one needs to write 5000 word essays on Flappy Bird. It's gotten completely out of hand and pretentious pseudo intellectual gaming "journalists" need to get their heads out of their asses.
I've heard of and played Flappy, and I can totally get both the "Whatever, it's throwaway" argument and the "This is kind of harmful to the games industry" argument. It's incredibly bland and simplistic, and it'll be forgotten in weeks, but that in itself is kind of troubling; it seems like more than ever before, this industry is completely controlled by zeitgeist as casual video-game players outweigh more traditional players, but only pop in to grab the games that are the most talked about. That basically means that at all times, most games can only possibly market themselves to 40% of people that want to play games; that 60% only come in when they hear a big-name franchise or trending indie game. That's not the fault of Flappy Bird, but it's indicative of it.
But eh, most people only read Bestsellers and most people only watch Summer Blockbusters. It's just games following the same trend.
I've heard of and played Flappy, and I can totally get both the "Whatever, it's throwaway" argument and the "This is kind of harmful to the games industry" argument. It's incredibly bland and simplistic, and it'll be forgotten in weeks, but that in itself is kind of troubling; it seems like more than ever before, this industry is completely controlled by zeitgeist as casual video-game players outweigh more traditional players, but only pop in to grab the games that are the most talked about. That basically means that at all times, most games can only possibly market themselves to 40% of people that want to play games; that 60% only come in when they hear a big-name franchise or trending indie game. That's not the fault of Flappy Bird, but it's indicative of it.
But eh, most people only read Bestsellers and most people only watch Summer Blockbusters. It's just games following the same trend.
I don't think it's as bad as being harmful. Rather, I think it's a challenge of the effectiveness of many mobile games bullshit marketing/pandering, which this game seems to have not much of. It's bland and simplistic, yes, but it's also stupidly difficult in a non-condescending manner. And no micro-transactions. The way I see it, games following the same trend as other big popular media is kind of indicative to how our culture has changed with video games, which is kind of a cool thing I guess.
And more on topic, I dunno, I think Flappy Bird is okay. I don't really get the people who give it shit for not aligning to their judgement on "objective quality" vs. popularity. It's kinda disheartening how easily people reduce this into a money thing, as if getting a lot of money and attention means you deserve to be mobbed by the internet for not being perfect (I guess the reasoning is that you don't "deserve" to get so much money and attention in the first place?) I think that's what's harmful about this whole Flappy Bird deal, even though it's nothing new. I guess that's my answer to #4, in a meta kind of way. Kinda made me think about how to like/dislike a video game and talk about it in a fair manner (i.e. how to be a good person in life and be nice to other people).
Looking more into this and listening to Bombin' in the AM today really made me annoyed about all of this.
Flappy Bird is a great example of watching people get worked up because they're too in love with their own opinions. This game doesn't take anything away from me. I had/have no interest in Angry Birds, Farmville,etc. But why should I care that a lot of people enjoy them? I wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of people just grabbing a quick and easy to play game on their phone would have no interest in the kind of games I enjoy. There's nothing wrong with that. Also a lot of people just want something to play waiting at the doctor's office or slacking off at their job.
I'm lost when it comes to people being pissed about Flappy Bird making a lot of money. I understand some games may cross a line where they seem abusive to the player. But is the complaint that people are afraid all this corrupting money will change game developers into money mongers who develop games based on profitability rather then trying to come up with (arguably) new innovative game design? Welcome to the free market. There's a good chance those game developers already cared about making money through broad accessibility rather then whatever it is you wanted. Or maybe if they're lucky they think these kind of games are fun and they enjoy making them.
There will always be a whole lot of people who like something you don't. And it's not like we all don't have a huge growing backlog of awesome games to play. Get over it.
3 - Not impressed. Played two rounds because a friend wanted me to try it. No desire to ever play it again. I had my fill of these kinds of games when I used to slack off in high school classes that had computers in the room.
4 - Not really. I like video games because I like video games. They like their mobile game for the same reason I'm sure.
5 - No. Just a different kind of gamer. I wouldn't call someone who enjoys bad sitcoms an idiot and act like I'm some kind of higher form of tv watcher, so I won't do it with games either.
2 - Yes. Downloaded it and played it for 2 minutes.
3 - Nothing special whatsoever. I guess it's like an endless runner type game where you jump through pipes. The jump mechanics is kinda shitty and I have no interest in mastering it.
4 - No.
5 - No. Although somewhat unrelated to this game I still wonder who sinks a ton of money in shallow F2P games. I don't if I feel sorry for them not knowing of "better" and less exploitative games or if I just don't understand what they get out of it and they wouldn't like what I think are "better games". In the end, it's their choice.
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