Mr. Porter attributed the game’s success to its real-time feel. Players can
watch animated playbacks of their teammates trying to guess their creation
before taking their turn. The word choices are another big selling point; in
addition to standard selections like “orange” and “dynamite,” the game is
liberally infused with pop culture references, like members of the Wu-Tang Clan
and Skrillex, a dubstep DJ.
“We’re also benefiting from hitting at a time when a lot of people are moving
from feature phones to smartphones,” he said.
Mr. Porter thinks that just as Facebook has a social graph — the people its
users want to be friends with — OMGPop can learn more about its “gamer graph,”
or the people their users like to play games with.
“It’s really about relationships,” he said of the game. “How well do I
know you and can guess what you drew. That is part of the fun.”
Stephen Bresnick on 26 Jan 12This is a really interesting article about the story of one of the most popular web-based games of last year. The interesting part is that the creator of the game designed it as a joke, trying to poke fun at other wildly popular games like Farmville. He made the game as simple as possible, compelled users to log in regularly to "Click a Cow," and had them earn points when other people clicked their cows. The message was supposed to be, "these types of games are manipulative in their tactics to keep people playing, and they are mindless and painfully stupid." However, his design stumbled on something that people really enjoy, and as a result, people didn't get that the game was meant to be a joke, and it became a huge hit. I think this shows that flow-inducing actitivities, or ones that keep the user engaged and provide quick feedback, are highly desirable for users.
