It Was The Smallest of Things But One Of The Most Irritating That Most People Could Relate To
And it lived inside our phones.
Well, ‘lived’ is not the right word.
It forced its way into our phones.
Like memes, they found a way of staying inside without leaving. But unlike memes, it did not make us laugh.
It made us angry.
It was so, so irritating, but only when you were playing it. Not when someone else was playing it.
When it was someone else, it was a moment to laugh. More often than not, a smile or a guffaw.
Yes, it was a game. You could download it on your phone and it would barely occupy much of your phone space. But it could occupy your time and corrupt your day in the worst way. Mostly.
Nevertheless, it was effective in doing two things.
Keeping you awake
I remember an afternoon class.
One of us didn’t have the best attention span for that particular class. He was not alone and with good reason. The lecturer was not the best at keeping the class engaged.
He would mention some crude dirty joke, and repeat it severally. It’s nothing new in a class filled with potential doctors in the making.
Then we heard the ping.
And another.
Then another.
After a sixth round, you knew the guy had crashed into one of the chimneys. I’ll call them chimneys. Or green pipes. Whatever rows your boat.
Now a doctor, this guy likes pissing people off but not too much. He also likes puns and makes very lame, dry jokes. On this day, I’m sure he took out his phone to piss off the other students who were keenly listening to the lecturer.
At the same time, he did it to amuse most of us.
He made sure the sound was just loud enough to signal the kind of game he was playing and not too loud as to interrupt the class.
For every round he started, we knew his score. Surprisingly, he was good. Unlike most of us.
That afternoon, the game did its job. It kept the player awake. It also kept us awake.
But remember, I said it often left the player angry and the spectators amused. We were amused and chances are it left the one-time class clown mad.
The game was Flappy Bird.
Flappy Bird
Never in my life have I ever played a game so addictive yet so irritating.
It would make you mad in seconds. Those around you, who would look to see your score would only laugh. This would only make you angrier!
When we started, most of my colleagues had the game installed on their phones. If my memory serves me right, for an entire week, the top score was 11 or 12. Earlier on, it was around 8.
A class of medical students. They were supposed to be one of the smartest groups in the country. They boasted a meager score of 8. It deserves a frame.
But I digress.
The point is, that this game would spark you into alertness. Boring lectures could turn into frustrating ones. You wouldn’t leave smarter. You’d leave angrier.
The game would also test your persistence
The original programmer had a single goal — to make a game that people could play in a few minutes and then go about their duties.
Shock on him.
It was one of the most addictive games online. If the numbers don’t shock you, the game was released in mid-2013 and gained popularity at the start of 2014.
The bird flapped its way into Forbes, Time Magazine, and The Telegraph. At the start of the year, it was the most downloaded free game on the iOS App Store. Estimates point out that it grossed around $50,000 a day.
For such an insanely high amount, it only left members in a lecture hall with a top score of 8.
Do you know what such a score means?
It means you only managed to cross 8 green pipes. That’s less than 10 seconds gone. But you’d spend over thirty minutes trying to beat that score.
The dopamine rush would fill your veins if you approached your high score, only for a green pipe to crush your goals.
But the members of my class were not just brilliant. They were persistent.
After a week, we got to the double digits. It now became a bragging tag.
What’s your high score?
I remember my roommate stayed up all night, probably so irritated he couldn’t sleep. The following morning, when we woke up, he had a high score of 86.
Almost 8 times higher than the high score at the end of the first week when I first heard about this game. I was still stuck at 6.
At least I didn’t have 2.
I also didn’t stay satisfied with my 6. Let’s just say I made progress. Don’t ask too many questions about my high score. Just know I got higher than 6 by the end of the week.
The game unveiled our boiling points.
Steam could be seen coming from those we thought were the calmest among us.
But anger taught us to find a way around issues.
For games such as these, it was a test of our mettle.
Would you continue playing a simple game that showed you weren’t that good?
You’re so used to coming on top all your life and then along comes a game barely 4 dozen kilobytes in size that tests your legacy. You have to retaliate. Persistence was key.
Below is a video of how to beat Flappy Bird.
It’s less than 2 minutes, so please watch to have a feel of the frustration we had when playing this game:
Yes, the game showed that we all have anger issues to different degrees.
Two things about the game worth noting
1. Its simplicity.
The game was a few kilobytes. If not twenty-something it was forty-something. It barely increased in size no matter your high score.
You could have a phone almost full and still have enough space for it to fit inside your crammed phone. And it would function seamlessly.
No settings. No levels. No complex features.
Just a poor graphics game, with a bird that looked like it flapped its wings.
A simple free download earned its founders millions. Do the math. $50,000 times 30? In less than a month, a kilobyte large game made somebody a millionaire.
It also made millions of people angry.
Chow on that.
2. It's low rating
Most people were mad at how such a simple game could earn so much attention.
It had a weak rating, but the gross earnings were far from weak.
I guess it’s how things work in the world. The QWERTY keyboard is not the best. It, however, dominated the field. It then became difficult to topple it from its top seat.
You can’t flap away from figures. Mean comments don’t take away your success.
It’s a good case of something simple taken seriously. Or not quite so by its critics.
As I close…
I don’t want to create a LinkedIn-esque quote and derive great meaning from all this but…I say it anyway.
Create. Let the world say what it will say.
Make them angry. Make your money.
And flap away.
Like the bird you are.