The Decline and Fall of Angry Birds

I came across a Business Insider article talking about the resignation of Rovio (Angry Birds) CEO Mikael Hed. Basically, the company is tanking because they bet it all on one franchise which they thought would spawn multimedia success with movie tie-ins, merchandise, etc. to rival Disney’s best mascot-promotion efforts. As it turns out, this particular bubble has burst magnificently. BI’s diagnosis of the situation is, in short, that

“The mobile games business is notoriously difficult: Games are essentially fads, and the Angry Birds fad is long over — eclipsed in part by Supercell’s Clash of Clans and King’s Candy Crush Saga.”

So the mobile games industry is singularly flighty. Nothing we don’t already know. What’s particularly troubling about the widespread penetration of this sector of the gaming industry is the values it represents: slavish imitation, pandering, and, most importantly, manipulation.