Not only is it the best selling iPhone game ever, it’s actually the best-selling paid app of all time. So what’s the secret to its success? We spoke to a psychologist for the lowdown on what makes flinging those birds so addictive.
Angry Birds is about to hit 100 million downloads, and with all the headlines it’s garnered, it’s hard to believe it’s only been out for a little over a year. Seasonal updates, soft toys, versions for Android and Symbian (not to mention a Facebook one incoming), fan cakes, celebrity fans including David Cameron and Paul Gascoigne; it’s one of the few apps that could truly be called a phenomenon. So why is it such a massive success?
The game has a unique mix of humour and aggression, and that’s a pretty potent combination. “Angry Birds gives people a release for their aggressive impulses,” says Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Reader in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. “They may not realise it, and may not thank you for pointing it out, but it has a cathartic effect, letting them act on their aggressive tendencies.”
But lots of games have aggressive or violent aspects, much more so than Angry Birds, yet nothing comes close to the success of Rovio’s Classic. It’s all down to the way it’s handled, according to Chamorro-Premuzic. “The humour of the game legitimises the actions you’re taking,” he says. “Because it’s cartoony it seems childish, distancing you from your actions. When you start it up and you see those birds with their cross-looking eyebrows, it’s obvious it’s fiction, so it gives you free reign to do as you wish.”
Niklas Hed, Chief Operating Officer of Rovio, told The Daily Telegraph in February, “When I first saw the characters, I liked them. Straight away I had a feeling I wanted to play the game,” so he obviously knew something about the design would appeal. But cartoonish graphics wouldn’t be enough, it takes a dose of realism as well to make it a bestseller. The constructions fall apart realistically, as if they had actually been struck by a flying object, annoyed bird or otherwise. Chamorro-Premuzic compares this blend of cartoony characters with realistic physics to The Simpsons, and, as Homer taking a tumble down Springfield Gorge attests, the results can be very funny indeed. “The birds are unrealistic, but the results of their actions are real,” he says. “This element of realism makes it far more appealing.” But you can go too far the other way. “If you replaced the birds with people, even if they were cartoony people, immediately the game would appeal to a much smaller, more explicitly aggressive audience.” Which explains why the many knockoffs have had nowhere near the success of Angry Birds.
Hed has described the moment he knew the game would succeed was when he saw his mother was hooked, and she wasn’t a gamer. But that’s the genius of its simplicity: aim, fire, try again. “It’s a lot more subtle than most games, so it appeals to a much broader range of people,” says Chamorro-Premuzic. “Most of them are socially normal, but it still highlights their inherent aggression.”
He compares this cartoonish aggression to black humour. “If you told someone laughing at a dark joke that they were as complicit as the person telling it, they’d probably be surprised. But humour, especially slapstick, is just a way of coping with the aggression inherent in all of us. It’s like playing sports, most of which are quite aggressive, or gossiping and bitching about other people. We can’t give these things up, they’re there as outlets. It’s the best way for society to function.”
So there you have it, firing birds at a building is much more than just a fun diversion. As Chamorro-Premuzic says, “If you’re on a packed train, and you’ve had a long day, and it’s hot, and you’re stressed, it’s far better to pull out your iPhone and play a game than start pushing people and starting fights.”
Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a consumer psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, and the creator of http://test.mi-id.com/ a music discovery tool based on consumer’s personality.
