No one ever has the right to be egotistical. Egotism isn't a right, it's a character flaw, and a damned annoying one at that.


Angry Birds is boring. Not only that, on my Epic the advertisement takes up an eighth of the screen (and that's one of the least obtrusive examples; some take up nearly half of the screen!), and I'd tend to accidentally tap it while playing. I've grown convinced Android is nothing more than just an advertising platform designed to coerce or beg as much money out of you as possible. A shame it's based on Linux, the 'free' software offerings are an absolute mockery of what Linux is supposed to be, and sorting through apps is an even worse nightmare than the bombardment of advertising. Still better than my last phone, it was nearly eight years old and couldn't do a whole hell of a lot. >_>

I went to the mall and saw a bunch of plush toys, shirts, hats, and all that garbage. That's all it was, consumerism garbage. There's really not much to Angry Birds, at all, but it's considerably more useful as an advertising and merchandising tool than as a contribution to gaming. I don't get it, personally, but apparently people eat this stuff up. That's "casual gaming" for you, I suppose.

There is no shame, absolutely no shame in a form of entertainment which has the purpose of finding those small, quiet, moments amidst the hustle-bustle of everyday life, and filling it. Because you know what, maybe it’s ok for them small boring moments to be filled with some small amusement. Maybe they deserve to be filled as much as the longer stretches do. And hell if you can have a full experience in that time as opposed to a tiny snippet of something bigger, that seems like a pretty good deal. That’s a contribution, whether you like it or not angry birds contributes and is a product of our current society. It is a piece of popular media; you can’t really get more relevant than that.

And you’re taking a stab at consumerism? We are on a shops forum. On the scale of things this is probably much deeper into the well than some t-shirts. Along with that, you know, one man’s rubbish.

I agree though, there’s no need for egotism, it’s rather unbecoming in a person never mind how it might have sprung up. And yes adverts placed in a game like that is more than a little off putting, although I’m assuming that’s how it can be sold so cheaply? Maybe the issue is they should take it all the way, make them free and support it with the advertisements. There maybe a place for that, it works for TV anyway. Well apart from the BBC. If nothing else touch screen technology has a way to go, it’s more than a little clumsy.

I find it funny how some people react on Angry Birds. Yeah, it's not the greates,t or even the most original, game ever made, but for what it is, it's fairly well done and polished. It's something casual and its success is nothing off from the "HC game" scene.

I understand fully why Rovio is doing their best to milk out all the cash they can: It's very unlikely they'll ever do another game that will get them as much attention. That's the way casual gaming works. For now they are at the top, but next year, who knows.

Hey, I have no problem with casual gaming. I do plenty of it myself. You'll notice I put the phrase in quotes above. I was mocking Angry Birds for being less of a game and more of a marketing tool where game design likely took less precedence than consulting with focus groups and marketing experts.

Also, I'd argue there's a difference between high-quality $6 games, and over-marked $30 shirts, hats, tote bags, coffee mugs, etc with highly-marketable logos. One is bonafide entertainment, and the other, well... it's probably churned out of sweatshops and finds it's way into a Goodwill just as quickly, and any novelty is probably worn out even quicker. I doubt you'd disagree that there's not much love and effort put into mass-marketing crud as there is in the art and passion of game design. Given, there's a lot of milking in the gaming industry, especially today, but I think it's comparatively removed from the realm of blatant consumerism.


Like I said though, I know people buy this shit. Supply and demand, and all that nonsense. It's suppose it's not my place to decide that Wing Commander III is a must-play bargain, and Hot Topic is a cesspool of overpriced crap aimed at the so-called "counter-culture".



We all hate advertising. My browser blocks ads, we've had VCR's with a "commercial skip" feature (which just fast-forwards for whatever the average length of a commercial break is supposed to be, useless), some magazines are more than 1/3rd advertisements (most comics are more than 1/3rd advertisements), and frankly, they've never really had any influence over my purchase habits. In fact, advertisements usually make me less interested in a product, depending on the frequency I'm subjected to them.

Apparently, advertising works, but nobody I've ever met in real life could be bothered to notice them. Advertisements are one of the reasons why I don't watch TV anymore. I've been watching Star Trek: TNG on NetFlix, in order, at my convenience, with no commercial breaks, and an odd lack of advertising (...and if they add advertisements, I'm killing my subscription), without paying extra for channels I don't give a damn about. Word of mouth is much more powerful, I would hope paying for advertising was the corporate equivalent of throwing money into a bonfire, but apparently not.

I'm astonished that the people responsible for those flashing "You're the 1,000,000th visitor" banners actually get a single penny back for the money they throw at advertisement space. In an ideal world, they'd pretty much be giving out money and earning absolutely nothing in return. I've never met anybody who bothered with internet advertisements (providing they weren't already blocking them outright), it's scary to think that they can, in any way, be at all profitable. I'm also astonished that our friends in the PRC get enough money from spamming every corner of the internet that it's considered a viable strategy, though that sort of advertisement doesn't cost anything aside from whatever shelter and rations they give to the slaves. >_>

I don't have much else to say about egotism, I think I put it well enough in my original statement, but as for touch screens... I think resistive touch screens have been damn near perfect since the palm pilot. Nevermind the lack of multi-touch, I've found capacitive touch screens overall vastly inferior. They're more sensitive and suitable for fingers, but they have no... well, resistance, there's no friction, they're not very accurate, I don't think they're pressure sensitive (at least my phone doesn't seem to be), drawing on a comparatively tiny DS screen is much more enjoyable than drawing on my phone with a capacitive stylus. I think we've gone backwards, personally...

It outright sucks on a handheld. I'm sure it's probably better on an iPad, but it's really annoying trying to aim when you have to toss one bird just to figure out where to start from. With a larger screen the game is probably a lot easier.

Someone found a legal way to make tons of money in a short amount of time and people are bitching about it? Whatever. This kind of thing is inspiring and all you haters should take note and do something yourselves if it bothers you that much.

What she said.. I mean he. =)
If your pickaxe hits in a gold vein.. I wouldn't stop digging.

I'd much rather make good games, and risk being ignored.

A good game is all in the fingers of the player...(my attempt at paraphrasing "beauty...eye of the beholder")

It's not only ethical but moral, now that is a hard combination to find!
That's rather elitist, Angry Birds is a functional game that's entertained millions. It works on multiple platforms and I swear the people bitching about it actually haven't played a lot of old games or they'd remember playing shit exactly like it on an Apple IIe. You may not like it and that's fair, but you not liking it doesn't make it "bad".

It's like making Al Pacino "Scarface" amounts of money but without the cocaine and money laundering!

Now that I've played the Android tablet version more (besides initially trying the PC flash version shortly), my verdict:

Not bad at all for a casual game when taking a dump or waiting your flight to take off. Evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Crush the Castle has nothing over this. CtC was just a nerdy game with crummy controls, while AB controls are much easier and make more sense. AB took the recipe that CtC copied as well, but made it actually playable, and much more polished.

In a way I don't consider AB to be any better game than e.g. Zuma's Revenge (which I also like to play on a mobile phone when taking a dump), but the good thing about AB is that one level can last only 30 seconds or so, so it retains much more that "one more try"-feeling, because you know you won't have to replay several minutes if you want to retry a level.

When you compare Angry Birds to other popular mobile games, say, Fruit Ninja, I don't think it has anything to be ashamed of.

But it is a casual game, how can you be rational and ruin our fun by stating that simple and short games that even my sister can play can be good!? Games should be like oldschool classics, like pacman that you needed your entire keyboard to control and read 200 pages of manual to understand! That's madness, I say! Nice necro, by the way :D

At least for 0€, that is. It is not like they are asking 50-70€ for it, like some other (flashier) casual "games" released for PC and consoles nowadays are. As I said, nice little game when taking a dump, a bit like Zuma's Revenge. And thankfully Angry Birds doesn't pretend to be anything more than a (casual) game, like certain movie-wannabe "games".

Also I am not quite sure about your claim that it is a short game. At least if you count in AB Seasons and Rio, there seems to be quite a few levels to complete. Maybe not as long as Daggerfall, but anyway. Quite good for a free game anyway. I've never understood the "necro!" cries, as if people should always start a new thread even though there is already an existing few weeks or months old discussion about exactly the same subject. I don't know if Facebook is to blame for that.

Because there's more downsides than upsides to it, really. I thought that too, but now I agree that it's solely up to OP to decide if thread deserves reviving or not - this way, OP can get no longer wanted replies, outdated replies are ALIVE and kicking again, people can change their opinion over time... Basically, if someone wants to open a topic again, he should open it again, this is like walking up to a friend and telling him "Hey, remember 5 years ago when you said that batman sucks, where I replied that it's not true and you said it is and then you said that you like Superman more?"