What was the Deal with Flappy Bird?

Anybody who reads the technology section of their chosen online news provider will have heard about the debate that has risen around flappy bird. What is flappy bird and why is it such a big deal?

For those of you Oliver Rawlings readers who have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, flappy bird is an app-game, in the same mold as Angry Birds and their ilk.

Specifically it’s a kind of retro style smartphone app game featuring 2D graphics that are a throwback to the days of the 1980’s. Basically you have to direct a flying bird, which keeps moving of its own accord to the right, through a set of obstacles.

Easy right? Nothing special about that right? Wrong. It’s unbelievably hard to actually do.  Seriously that little bird is annoying. However, people tend to like hard and annoying, for some reason. This has led to flappy bird becoming the most addictive app game since angry birds (I still prefer classic snake for the nokia though).

Addictive means popular in this modern world. Since it was first introduced in March, it has boomed in popularity and has become a staple on app screens across the world. You couldn’t go anywhere by the end of 2013 without hearing about that annoying little flappy bird.

However the game clearly peaked too early. The creator of the game got so annoyed with it that they decided to discontinue it. Furthermore Google’s app store has now banned a series of flappy bird clones that became popular in the wake of the discontinuation.

However this isn’t the end of flappy bird. A whole  new generation of flappy clones such as flappy bee are now becoming popular; it’s clear  there’s still a strong public demand for this most annoying of smartphone games.

I really think that this international incident, as trivial as it is, says something intrinsic about human nature. As a community we are fascinated by what we cannot do and what we cannot have; it’s the whole ‘grass is greener’ thing for the modern day.

So it stands to reason that the more difficult the game is, the more addictive it is, the more popular it becomes. Crazy but true. It looks clear, Oliver Rawlings readers, that we are looking at the future. Humanity is always looking for that next adventure, that next challenge. It appears that even smartphone app games are no exception when it comes to this most basic of human truths.