The lesson of Flappy Bird for games developers | Hacker News Reader

The lesson of Flappy Bird for games developers

gamezebo.com

37 pointsjoelbro48 comments

"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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

It is more ethical to rip off game mechanics: in one instance you re-implement an idea (game mechanics) and in the second you take the pixels, the concrete form of the ideas that an artist had.

The problem with game mechanics as with other ideas is taking them and present them as yours or as new, even if you didn't add anything much to them. This is what I think people refer to as "ripping off" a game mechanic. The other case of "stealing" a game mechanic is perfectly acceptable in the collective mind. Nobody complains about Half Life, Unreal or a first person shooter game that ripped of the main mechanics of a FPS.

they copy game ideas/concepts, this guy is stealing artworks and will have some fun with nintendo soon

"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.

Or as the second comming of the 1983's game crash.

I was thinking about that game crash myself the other day when mulling over the whole IAP mobile gaming fiasco. It really feels as if, by racing to the bottom, the whole market is running the risk of losing purchasers' confidence. There isn't really a very vibrant game review scene to prop things up either.

The main problem I see, it that the crash was the main reason of why Nintendo came up with gated development as a means to control quality.

The model still being used in the console world.

We might end up going again down that road.

This was recently posted to HN: 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.

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.

I wonder how far you could get using dark patterns/manipulative design to force the user to improve their life.

Have there been any attempts? Before you suggest it I should say that I think BeeMinder does not count because of it being upfront about what it's there to do.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

At the moment the game is free.

The options are:

1) a bunch of weird ads

2) a single IAP labeled "give me some money" that does nothing but gives the dev some small amount of cash.

3) a series of IAPs labeled "give me cash", "give me more cash", "give me even more cash", "give me loads of cash", which are set at increasing amounts. These again do nothing except give the dev some cash.

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.

I'm sure it was by design just as the fall rate is just quick enough to get from the highest to lowest pipes in the perfect amount of distance travelled.

>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.

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.

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.

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

Very short bursts of activity are brilliant for mobile gaming. That "just one more go" feeling is strong.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Just tried that helicopter game, while it has similar concepts, the gameplay mechanics are different enough - in the helicopter game you hold the mouse button to stay aloft, versus repeatedly flapping. Also Flappy Bird has a nicer feel, the physics (ie. fall rate, because that's about all there is) feel more 'right', and of course the graphics and everything are just more fun.

So no, I'd say it's not a clone.

But the mechanics are indeed similar enough. It's obvious it was inspired by it. Look at Angry Birds and that other flash game i used to play in school. Castle, Catapult something?

in gaming though, everything is inspired by something. Nothing is truly original. See all RTS games, shooters, 4x games, etc... Anything that's not an outright clone is different enough to be it's own oeuvre, IMO.

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.

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?

I've seen criticism of the collision detection a couple of times, but can't spot it myself. As far as I can tell, on Android, it's perfect. Do you have slowed down video that proves the detection is off, or is this just a 'feeling'?

No, there's thousand games on the App Store with the helicopter mechanic, look for Jetpack Joyride for a popular one. Flappy Bird mechanic has also been used, Badland is a popular example. Flappy Bird is unique because it's so simple but difficult.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com