
The lesson of Flappy Bird for games developers - joelbro
http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2014/02/05/lesson-flappy-bird-games-developers-and-it%E2%80%99s-not-what-you-think
======
aresant
"the number one key to success is dumb, blind, luck"

This is a red herring.

The number one key to winning the lottery is dumb, blind luck.

That is true.

But don't categorize the entire game industry, let alone this developer's
story in that framework just because it's easy for the media to generate
pageviews about a lottery winner.

The macro reality is that proven business models around building a studio on
the back of high quality apps (or highly aggressive pay-to-play apps),
purposeful marketing models, etc exist all over the place.

The micro reality of this developer is the guy has run his studio for 4 YEARS,
had published several games before in a variety of formats, etc.

So he's a 4-year overnight success.

He didn't throw in the towel, and more important than "blind luck" in his
story was perseverance, and he didn't "die" (1).

So please don't tell people that the most important factor in becoming
successful is to go out and buy lottery tickets.

(1) [http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

~~~
vannevar
_So please don 't tell people that the most important factor in becoming
successful is to go out and buy lottery tickets._

But that's exactly what perseverance is in this context, buying more tickets.
You can't win the lottery if you buy no tickets, and the more you buy, the
more likely it is you will win. You can't have a hit game if you produce no
games, and the more games you produce, all else being equal, the more likely
one will be successful. Luck plays a dominant role and you can't control
opportunity, but you can increase your exposure to it by continuing to show
up.

------
georgemcbay
They forgot to mention Lesson #1 which is go ahead and just blatantly rip out
the tile graphics from an old Nintendo game and reuse them, it is easier than
wasting time creating your own and apparently you can get away with it.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
When the biggest mobile game companies in the world rip off other people's
games, why on earth would an independent developer not also feel entitled to
do the same?

~~~
georgemcbay
There's a pretty big difference (legally and ethically) between making a game
that has similar mechanics to another game and just outright ripping out
graphic assets to place in your own game.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
First of all, that's a pretty big accusation to level at someone on public
record: are you 100% certain that the graphic assets have been lifted pixel-
for-pixel? Second, I agree with you on the legal point: it's much easier to
'protect' visual assets than it is a game mechanic. However, I dispute the
fact that ripping off someone's game mechanics is, somehow, more ethical; in
both cases, you're simply copying someone else's work and passing it off as
your own. Just because one is easier to define, and therefore protect, in law,
doesn't mean they're not both pretty nasty ways of operating.

~~~
georgemcbay
Not that big of an accusation when the theft is so obvious.

It doesn't really matter if the graphics are pixel-by-pixel the same,
modifying them a bit to make them slightly different doesn't protect you. See:
EA's lawsuit against Zynga over The Ville which Zynga had to settle.

------
MartinCron
"But maybe what game players really want is a game that is fun and free, with
no strings attached."

I just respect any game that has no strings attached. I have mostly given up
on iOS gaming because there's just so much niggling and begging and nickel-
and-dining.

This will be remembered as a dark age, not a golden era.

~~~
emhart
This was recently posted to HN:
[http://honestandroidgames.com](http://honestandroidgames.com)

Not iOS, of course, but the whole purpose is to feature games that are either
free, or have a one-time purchase, whether in a marketplace, or in-app, that
provides the entire game, no recurring purchases, etc.

~~~
FreeKill
Nice site, thanks for the link. I really think there is an underserved
blogging market for curation of apps and games, especially with a specific
theme such as this site does.

------
DanBC
The linked blog talking about the "suspicious" rise of the game misses the
appearance of flappy bird on Pewdiepie.

There's also a comment talking about how to monetise the game "properly" which
gives advice about some reasonably ghastly monetisation techniques:

> At the very least he should have added a interstitial upon opening the game,
> and maybe one everytime the game becomes active. He should have included a
> retry button.

> There should have been a more games & free game button. He could have added
> a remove ads in-app purchase, and made it so that you can only get rid of
> the ads for ‘x’ amount of time before you have to buy again.

> He could have provided upgrades like buying shields and/or lifes so you can
> get further, getting rid of peoples frustration.

~~~
JonLim
Genuinely curious, what's so ghastly about an interstitial upon becoming
active, and a retry button?

It's a free game, I think people expect ads by now. Maybe not every time the
game starts up (or having a daily limit) but that's not the worst thing in the
world.

~~~
georgemcbay
Being free is likely the only thing that has stopped Nintendo's lawyers from
coming down on him like a ton of bricks at some point in the past 8 months or
however long the game has been out.

If he wants to monetize it he really better change the graphics first (though
technically he's still copyright infringing regardless of whether he is
charging for his game).

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Is the pipe graphic literally lifted from Mario, pixel-for-pixel? Or is it
just very similar. TBH, I don't think he's infringing any more than King,
Zynga, et al.

~~~
MartinCron
Setting a pretty low ethical bar when you compare to King and Zynga.

------
prezjordan
It's interesting to take a closer look at this game. Make something intuitive
enough where people think "Of course I can beat your high score in this, look
how simple it is" and then it make it _insanely_ difficult.

Side note: I wonder if the developer meticulously chose the "flap height" and
pipe width such that it would drive us all insane, or if he just got lucky.

~~~
phaus
>Side note: I wonder if the developer meticulously chose the "flap height" and
pipe width such that it would drive us all insane, or if he just got lucky.

Its hard to say. I guess most people find this pretty compelling, but to me it
comes across as an unplayable clone of helicoptergame.net. It looks pretty
polished for a pixel game, but I don't consider bad controls, intentional or
not, to be a clever game mechanic.

~~~
scrabble
It's not really polished. There's no music. And almost all of the in game
graphics are borrowed from other games. So I guess it's polished in the sense
that those other games did the polishing.

It really does come off as someone who started out trying to clone Mario, or
someone who was just trying to make their first game without expecting anyone
to actually download it.

The lack of a paid ad-free version shows that it wasn't really expected to be
downloaded millions of times.

~~~
phaus
Polished probably isn't the right word for it. I just meant that the graphics
are cohesive(even though they are copied) and the animation is smooth. Most
popular games fail to achieve even that much.

------
Mikeb85
The key to success is essentially, word of mouth (or the internet equivalent).
And addicting gameplay.

Every single person I know in the real world (ie. not on the internet) is
playing this game. I know more people playing this game, right now, than Angry
Birds in its heyday, or Candy Crush right now.

It's funny how such a simple game can capture people's attention - I'm
addicted, my high score (from yesterday) is 90 :-0

~~~
code_duck
Wow, I am super out of the loop as this is the first I've ever heard of it.

~~~
benched
Even though I don't know people in real life, I couldn't miss it. The only
sites I visit are HN and Kotaku, and it's front page on both. And now it's on
HN twice.

Success flows to success, but good luck creating either a chicken or an egg
from nothing.

~~~
code_duck
I visit this site and facebook every day, and reddit now and then so I'm
surprised I haven't encountered this.

Um... not sure what you're getting at, but I'll try to work on that chicken.
Or egg.

------
joelbro
Imagine if the developer added a challenge feature in the game where can share
score with friend? it'd be twice as popular.

i think the pipe width was picked based on how it was in a certain nintendo
game, he got lucky, but he's also talented developer (his other games really
fun as well.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Doesn't it already have a score-sharing feature? My nightmare earlier was the
addition of IAP to decrease the difficulty ever-so-slightly; combined with
score oneupmanship, that would probably lead to the end of civilisation as we
know it.

------
iamwil
I found that the audio for this game made it much more fun. The coin sound is
pleasant and familiar, and reinforces me to want to play.

The punching sound when you die is pretty hilarious, and makes me want to try
again. Because, hey, if I got a good laugh from dying, maybe I'll have another
laugh from it again. The death punch is accentuated by the slight screen shake
as well. nice little touches.

There are other mechanics that make it rather addicting, but I found the sound
and other little touches added a lot.

------
stackcollision
Is Flappy Bird just a clone of that rediculously fun helicopter tunnel game
that everyone used to play on AddictingGames, the name of which escapes me
right now? It's funny how many of these record-shattering Android and iOS
games are just polished versions of ancient Flash games.

~~~
concernedctzn
It's a mix of that and the bird vehicle from Machine Gun Jetpack which used
the same tap/flap mechanic. Thrown together with some mario sprites and not so
great hit detection.

~~~
drivers99
The flapping mechanic looks a lot like swimming in Super Mario Bros (1985), or
the flying in Joust (1982), minus the ability to control your horizontal
movement. So it seems pointless to compare it to more recent games. If the
game involved only jumping, or climbing ladders, or shooting, would we try to
figure out which other games had that mechanic?

------
alexvr
No, it's not luck. Unless we're talking about growing up in Palo Alto at the
dawn of computers, luck usually has very little to do with success. It's all
about persistence and market understanding. In this case, it's mostly about
creating games that people actually want. Good games are challenging and fun,
so people buy them. Graphics, music, etc. are secondary. It doesn't take
Bungie or John Carmack to make Tetris, but it's one of the best games ever
made. Why? Because it's fun. I'd probably buy a knockoff Tetris app for $20
before I buy a beautiful but completely boring game like Infinity Blade for
much less.

~~~
thezilch
Sure, but making a fun game can be luck. There will be developers that don't
need luck (or are lucky to not need it?!). Rovio made _A LOT_ of games other
than Angry Birds; is making a lot of "bad" games and then one "good" not luck?
I'm sure they set out and had equal confidence in each of their games being
gold mines, before they were not or, in the case of Angry Birds, were.

------
pcunite
The lesson here is: "Free is the new black". I have an application that, once
I begin to charge for it, fell off the radar and into hacker's greedy hands.
Must we all simply be media containers?

------
benched
I have a prototype I wrote sitting on my phone right now that has very similar
mechanics. But I don't believe for half a second that, had I finished it, it
would have achieved one ten-thousandth of the success. In the age where anyone
who wants to can create games, music, art, whatever on their computers,
there's a ton of great work languishing in obscurity for every single work
that finds the straight-and-narrow to the big time.

~~~
stevenwei
Luck is also a huge factor. Sometimes it's just one of those 'right place,
right time' moments that can't really be replicated again.

