Why is “Flappy Bird” so successful?

Flappy Bird is a free puzzle game. It was developed in Vietnam and published by GEARS Studios, a small independent game developer which is also located in Vietnam.  Flappy Bird was released in May last year. In the first two months, it only had 1000 downloads in total and received some moderately positive reviews. However, by the end of January 2014, it ranked in the top of the “free” category of the American, British, and Chinese iTunes App Stores. It brought in $50,000 in advertising revenue every day since last Thanksgiving Day.

Flappy Bird does not contain beautiful graphics and bright visual effects. At first glance, Flappy Bird looks like an old JAVA game.  Its graphics, gameplay and objective are based in simplicity. The objective of the game is to fly a bird without hitting pipes.  The game gets more difficult as your bird flies further.  However, if your bird hits a pipe, then the game is over. 

The keys to success:

There is no barrier to entry. Flappy Bird is free to download and free to play. It is only a 2.2MB app. The game is familiar.  When gamers play Flappy Bird they feel like they are playing Angry Bird.  Everyone can understand and play it.  There is no action in the game; players only need one finger to play it. The game never ends; every level has different pipes and obstacles.  The scoring system in Flappy Bird is very good. You either compete against your own high score or you challenge the scores shared by your friends on Facebook, WeChat, Instagram or other social media. Some avoidable obstacles cause Game Over; however, players are encouraged to try again by the speed and simplicity of doing so. Flappy Bird with longer attempts, like the game Temple Run which is endless running, require more time at start up and a potentially greater investment. 

Yesterday, Dong Nguyen announced that he will remove Flappy Bird from the Android and Apple app stores on Feb 9^th, 2014. He said that he could not take all the attention and criticism anymore. So, he deleted the most popular game from both marketplaces.

Chinese Entertainment Industry experts

            Cheng Tian Qiao is the board president of Chinese Ministry of Electronic Information Industry. In December 1999, he established Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, which is the biggest game developer and publisher company in China. Under his leadership, Shanda has become a top interactive entertainment company with annual income revenue of more than one billion dollars. Moreover, the tax contribution of Shanda Game to the government has ranked the number one in Chinese entertainment industry in 2011. His theories of success are innovating, keeping an open mind, entertaining and understanding customers’ needs.

Before 1999, there were many small game companies in China, but these companies were only focused on the table games, such as poker cards, chess board games and mah-jongg gambling. After he graduated from university, he wanted to make a change of the traditional game. Then, he decided to move the table games to the PC so that people could play with computer anytime. He created the mah-jongg game into a PC version in the end of 1999. He did not realize the PC game would be so popular and attractive to people.  He continued to cooperate with the game leaders, Nintendo and EA to establish the game service in China. In 2003, he created the Zheng Tu 3D game, which was the most popular PC game at that time in China. His success has influenced the growth of the game industry in China.

            Jack Ma is the most successful and influential Network company leader in China. He has been selected as one of the world’s best B2B website business leaders for five times by Forbes. He has advanced vision. His business plan takes advantage of competitors. He studied English at Hangzhou Normal University but was not good at studying, so he failed examinations many times at the school. After he graduated, as a pioneer, he came to America to learn Network technology. When he came back to China, he found there was no network company there, and then he began to create Chinese Yellow Page with American friends.

            When eBay was very popular and shared 50% of the Chinese C2C Internet market, he invented Taobao online shopping mall, which was free to every business owner and customer. After several weeks, eBay dropped out from Chinese C2C Internet market. He decided to expand his business and created another company called Alibaba. He took advantage of eBay by sharing B2B Internet market to target American consumers. In the arrangement, he allowed Alibaba customers to use eBay's PayPal and some eBay customers using Alipay in China. Alibaba has carved out a niche in the world and helped Chinese businesses vendors to sell products overseas.           

Cheng Tian Qiao and Jack Ma show successful entertainment businesses led by different managing styles. Cheng Tian Qiao shows that a man who is the vanquisher in all-game industries depends on innovating and entertaining. Jack Ma profiles one whose success depends on sharp insight into the first Internet market by knowing peoples’ needs.

                                                                        

The Influence of Social Media in Digital Marketing

        Digital marketing is so widespread that customers have the access to information about their favorite product at any time and any place they want.  The old days are gone when marketing was only limited to traditional marketing such as telemarketing and newspaper advertisements. The introduction of digital technology has led to newer and more accurate forms of digital marketing. According to the research, the advertisement of printed format has reduced 30% in five years because the cost of the digital format is lower and easy to manipulate.  Digital marketing is growing exceptionally fast each day providing easy access to all sources of entertainment, news, and shopping. Customers are now exposed to social interaction with what your friends are buying and trending, the new buzz and hype, the news about the products and the brand they like. They can share their experience with friends, family and peers, which in turn creates a new form of reach called social marketing and trending. People want brands they can trust, products that are personalized and relevant, and are tailored to their needs and preferences. As a result of these new demands, social media has proved to be one of the biggest and the best way to market digitally to ensure a huge outreach. Facebook continues to be one of the best places to do marketing. According to research the number of users on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are rising, giving marketers opportunities to interact with audiences in innovative ways. Advertisements that are tailored to specific customers will ensure a better brand exposure, and this is a huge advantage for a company. The best marketing team understands that it’s important to create quality promotions and new innovative ways to do digital marketing. This not only attracts more customers but also makes them remember your brand.
 

Digital marketing is influenced by technology changes. The following graph shows the increasing in new trends and methods of ways how customers and consumers interact with advertisements and promotions. With the availability of a smartphone in everyone’s hands, marketers and promoters are now shifting towards mobile marketing.

Picture resource: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/marketing-trends-2013/