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Angry Birds, Super Mario and Glee
Angry Birds is a multi level smartphone game making history. Almost 10 million copies of it have been downloaded. At present count there are over 600 levels to the game with more being added all the time. The idea behind the game is to kill or blow up an army of pigs using a catapult and a variety of egg laying and exploding birds. Yes I know it sounds stupid but can 10 million people be wrong? The game calls for a combination of accuracy and planning, oh and a fine sense of humor. Remind you of Super Mario, the Nintendo manifestation where two Italian plumbers run past mushrooms and demons in their attempt to release a princess.
Both games, if you haven’t already guessed, were conjured up in the minds of a Japanese programmer. But there’s more to it than that – there’s also the ‘C’ factor but I’ll get to that in a moment.
When you look at the success of these two games you see a factor emerging. Now lets add Glee. Why is it such a success. The acting isn’t great, the jokes are corny, the plot is often a badly written remake of daytime soap. So why do we love it. The Japanese invented a couple of other things beside computer games. They are also famous for Karaoke. What is the fascination of a group of drunk Japs badly singing sixty hits, and why do kids of all ages keep returning to midnight performances of The Rocky Horror Picture Show? It’s the ‘C’ factor. Apart from the ingenuity behind Mario and Angry Birds, the real attraction is how cute the characters and graphics are. This is one of the reasons behind the success of Glee, the characters are cute, flawed and easy to identify with. This is also the secret behind Japanese Karaoke. Watching others sing badly helps lighten your inhibitions. So I’m off to play the 274th Angry Bird level before Glee broadcasts. And for all of you Star War fans out there, don’t underestimate the ‘C’.
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