Why Do Fads Fade? The Inevitable Death Of Flappy Bird

What a weird article. It feels like the author wanted to convey his insight that the reason fads fade is due to the gameplay having a constrained information density. And then he felt the urge to follow the tradition of anchoring the thesis in a concrete current example, and he chose flappy birds. But flappy birds is not at all an example that satisfies the hypothesis. Flappy bird, as he mentions, was deliberately pulled from the store by its creator. Why didn't he choose pokemon go instead? Because that hasn't fully faded yet? I'm not trying to personally attack the author, I'm just making a comment that the style in this article probably isn't what we want to emulate in our own stuff.

Indie GameDev is absolutely a hits driven business. Often I tell people you will learn more from studying some thing like the Autobiography of Keith Richards. Than yet another build a game engine in thirty days book ;)<p>Html5 &quot;io&quot; games follow similar viral trajectories. But also have some staying power. Once they develop mechanics or features that encourage replay-ablity. Particularly at web scale multiplayer with leaderboards ;)<p>Some examples for Friday Fun<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;splix.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;splix.io&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;starblast.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;starblast.io&#x2F;</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;zombs.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;zombs.io&#x2F;</a>

This one kind of lost me on it&#x27;s comparison to Breaking Bad. I could be an outlier here, but I&#x27;ve rewatched Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Walking Dead at least 4 times, probably more.<p>The reason I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;m too much of an outlier, in that AMC always runs a marathon to both attract new viewers and reconnect existing viewers, and if it weren&#x27;t successful, I doubt they&#x27;d keep doing it.<p>The article makes some good points about variability and using the story line format to get people hooked, but it&#x27;s examples and connections seem really tenuous to the overall point.

I would love to create an app that makes $50k a day and lasted even a week. I wouldn&#x27;t care if it was a fad at that point.

Interesting timing as a French clone of Flappy Bird - VooDoo (with a ball instead of bird) is currently the top game in Google Play store...

TLDR; conflict,mystery,resolution : are three phases in a cycle to keep you engaged<p>(akin to the way this article was written)

Author is blissfully unaware that <i>Flappy Bird</i> is alive and well in arcades:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jIZvK5yORrw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jIZvK5yORrw</a><p>(video from 2015 but I played one last week)

Didn’t Flappy Bird die because it was pulled from app stores?

I don&#x27;t think there is much reason analysing lucky successes. Real success happens by getting a little lucky here and a little lucky there, learning over time how to keep the good fortune once acquired, and then stacking one success over another. Analysing FarmVille and Flappy Bird is like analysing why a lottery winner chose the right numbers.<p>And in both cases the surprise money is gone just as quickly.

Anybody here remember the pet rock fad of the 70&#x27;s? The more interesting question to me regarding silly fads like pet rocks, droopy pants, and &quot;Baby On Board&quot; stickers is how they begin.

Because that&#x27;s what fads do. They&#x27;re transient by nature, that&#x27;s why they&#x27;re called a fad.