Angry Birds and Parabolic Instinct In Humans 234
Frankie70 writes "Matt Ridley writes about Angry Birds, an iPhone game (later ported to other platforms) which has sold more than 12 million copies. The spectacular trajectory of the game, from obscure Finnish iPhone app to global ubiquity — there are board games, maybe even movies in the works — is probably inexplicable. Ridley wonders if there is an evolutionary aspect to its allure. There is something much more satisfactory about an object tracing a parabolic ballistic trajectory through space towards its target than either following a straight line or propelling itself."
Like tank wars (Score:2)
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Before that, there was ARTILLERY [wikipedia.org] for the Apple II. I remember also playing a variant called BERTHA that let you abort your shot (if it was too powerful) by typing "ABORT" within 1 second.
Re:Like tank wars (Score:5, Informative)
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"Happy Birthday to you!"
I played 3D; it wasn't nearly as much fun as the original version.
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Yep, definitely scorched earth. It was, after all, the mother of all games. It said so itself.
Re:And Worms (Score:2)
Yes, Worms! That's an incredible just-one-more-and-then-I-quite-seriouslah game!
Parabolic, wind resistance, thrust, what a physics project that was.
Btw my little brother replaced the voicesets- Imagine hearing Worf [wikipedia.org] throwing intimidations in-game.
Cafeteria-table football!! (Score:3, Interesting)
The coolest version of this game was "Football" played on a cafeteria tabletop with a folded up sheet of paper. You would score by flicking the paper with your middle finger through a set of "uprights" consisting of your opponent holding up two "L's" with his thumbs and index fingers.
Had it all. Parabolic, wind resistance, thrust, what a physics game that was.
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I'm pretty sure you've never used the wind in your "Football" game to have the hit a target sheided under an overhang by shooting into the wind so that that shot turns 180 degrees.
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Or like Kitten Cannon, something amazingly satisfying about seeing that kitten bounce in arcs.
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App Store . . . the home of people ripping off ideas that have been around for 30 years and becoming millionaires from all the suckers who think it's the greatest thing they've ever seen.
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App Store...the home of people riffing on ideas the way humans have always done and users discovering those ideas due to the great exposure they can get now.
Cannon (Score:3)
Anyone who played the ancient cannon game would resonate with this. Two cannon, placed on opposite sides of the screen, take turns firing shots where the angle and velocity is variable. Very satisfying for such a simple game.
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Anyone who played the ancient cannon game would resonate with this. Two cannon, placed on opposite sides of the screen, take turns firing shots where the angle and velocity is variable. Very satisfying for such a simple game.
You mean Pocket Tanks [wikipedia.org]?
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Movie...? (Score:5, Insightful)
An "Angry Birds" movie? Look, I love the game, I really do. But a movie? Please no.
Re:Movie...? (Score:5, Informative)
An "Angry Birds" movie? Look, I love the game, I really do. But a movie? Please no.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMltvlqEM54 [youtube.com]
It's less than three minutes, and completely hilarious. Warning: audio contains the 'F-bomb' and you may not consider it SFW.
I think it's exactly the right length for an "Angry Birds" movie.
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Okay, that was pretty good.
But for a full length movie, I'm afraid we'll end up with another monstrosity from Uwe Boll.
Re:Movie...? (Score:5, Funny)
If there is anyone who can turn angry birds into a 90 minute movie starring Meatloaf and a room full of Ukrainian prostitutes, it is Uwe Boll. It will be a spectacular success, if only due to German tax shelter laws concerning the funding of a failed movie.
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Do you think a law could stop him? IMDb shows he has several movies in production.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0093051/ [imdb.com]
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a sitcom ;-)
Jeez. (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, they can't. Sadly, the all the marketers did not follow Bill Hick's advice.
Gosh, I hope my hateful post does not trigger some lunatic to go out and shoot anyone!
Re:Jeez. (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps, but I think its a good idea that some study goes into this. I've experienced this weird effect personally. Having JUST gotten an Android phone this past month (I know, what took me so long) I asked a buddy of mine what apps he has that are handy. I figured I'd grab iTriage in case of emergencies, and that 3G Watchdog to keep an eye on my data usage. He recommended Angry Birds as a game, so I downloaded it and played it a bit.
I didn't think much of it, having played Bloons on Flash for the PC years ago, and then Worms before that, and some manner of tank game before that - I've noticed that theres always some addictive parabolic gravity based game here or there.
THEN my girlfriend got a hold of my new phone. Testing out the apps she stumbled across Angry Birds. She can't put it down. I absolutely can't understand it. She'll get her attention devoted to it. Enough to a point where I'm driving and we'll be having a conversation and she'll be playing the game at the same time, and then she'll go "Oh darn... shoot..." and then when I stop talking she goes "oh yeah... I'm still listening. Open Source, Microsoft, Yada yada. Continue" (perhaps I shouldn't BORE her with certain topics but it shows that she can't even fake an attention span while playing the game). She's killed my battery more than a few times just playing Angry Birds while driving across the city. She hasn't been a gamer like me and been exposed to this type of game before.
I wonder if its the same reason we like to throw rocks in the river and/or make them skip, or put basketball through hoops, kick balls into nets, or swing clubs at them to make them land in a tiny hole. I think there might be something deeply engrained into every human mind that enjoys this, and I'm curious to see what they find.
Re:Jeez. (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm... Do you realize what site you're on? 'Round here, trying to dissect the appeal of a game like Angry Birds IS fun!
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Over analyzing the reason for mass appeal, as well as statistical distributions showing cross cultural appeal of various game genres is just how these people have fun, you insensitive clod.
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Re:Jeez. (Score:5, Funny)
Can't anything just be fun anymore?
Says the dude that broke the zodiac. Thanks a lot, pal...
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Within limits. There's only so much real fun people can take, before it becomes unreal. After all, it doesn't take a conic genius to imagine that a circular trajectory would work just as well to project the birds, plainly speaking.
Not just people (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was a kid, I had a dog that could follow a parabolic trajectory. By throwing the ball at an angle to roll along the angled roof of our house, its trajectory would follow the arc and drop down at a point further down the yard.
The dog learned to anticipate where the ball would fall from the roof, even though she couldn't see the ball from her vantage point on the ground.
Re:Not just people (Score:4, Funny)
Anyone else think,"Kids are so cruel they even throw dogs around."?
Re:Not just people (Score:5, Funny)
When I was a kid, I had a dog that could follow a parabolic trajectory.
My dog, too. No matter how many times I threw her up in the air, off a roof, out of a moving car, whatever.... parabolic arc. Apparently, Peanuts the poodle was not immune to gravitation and Newtonian conservation of energy.
She was a good dog. Except for resisting being picked up. I guess she figure out pretty quick you are less likely to end up flying in a perfect conic section path if no one can raise your gravitational potential above local ground state. A physics genius, Peanuts.
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+5, pedantic AND funny!
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Does she come when you call? Does she chase squirrels at all?
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I always considered all of this as a survival trait of all predators. The ability to calculate trajectories combined with some experience to take in the effects of gravity, and other effects are demonstrated all around us in this world every day.
For example:
I have watched a Red-tail Hawk stoop on a rabbit running across a section of freshly plowed ground. The hawk displayed an awesome degree of precision and accuracy combined with speed that almost took my breath away!
Not to disparage you dogs display of hi
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That's just learning by repetition.
There are a couple of things suggesting that "parabolic instinct" is hogwash.
First, objects in the gravitational field of a sphere follow ellipses, not parabolas. Granted, on the scale of a human-powered throw the higher-order terms in the Taylor-series expansion are as near to nothing as makes no odd, but still, if you're talking about an instinct and getting mathematical, you need to be more precise.
Second, objects in a nonconserving gravitational field don't follow a p
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>>There are a couple of things suggesting that "parabolic instinct" is hogwash.
Have you ever been driving your car at a green light, that's been a green light for a while, and it's still kind of a ways away? You can feel the point at which it is better to stop and brake if it turns yellow, versus accelerating and making it through (assuming you're not someone who drives through reds). In other words, your brain is calculating two second order equations in real time, and measuring it against an estimat
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That's learned, too.
It's not 2 seconds everywhere.
Your brain isn't calculating anything. It's making an estimate based on past understanding of the timing.
And that's a linear calculation anyway (x = v*t), not a parabolic one.
I have no doubt that our brains understand physics without knowing any math. In fact, they understand it better than most people can do the math, since almost no real-world physics occurs according to the simple model of a controlled, limited universe under which x = a*t^2 was derived
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>>And that's a linear calculation anyway (x = v*t), not a parabolic one.
If your car doesn't have pedals for acceleration or braking, I wouldn't recommend driving it.
>>Your brain isn't calculating anything. It's making an estimate based on past understanding of the timing.
An estimate is a calculation, there's no way around it. And it does a very good job. The only time I got it wrong is when the City of San Diego started shortening the yellow lights to the legal minimum, so that they could get mo
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Are you trying to tell us your dog was smarter than you?
A classic day on slashdot!
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My cat would follow a parabolic trajectory while also demonstrating the Doppler effect to horrified bystanders.
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Seriously?
The difference between C-sharp and D-flat? What difference? They're enharmonically equivalent to each other.
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The difference between C-sharp and D-flat? What difference? They're enharmonically equivalent to each other.
Only in a tempered tuning.
Then why... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Agreed. I speculate that it somehow made the game either too easy or too difficult, at least with the style of level design they are using.
Tank Wars, Scorched Earth, a multitude of others (Score:2)
Angry Birds is fun and cute, but hardly anything more. It isn't even original.
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Angry Birds != Scorched Earth.
If you really really oversimplify those two then they have some similarities but the way you play them is very different. It's like saying Sonic the Hedgehog is unoriginal because Super Mario Bros. preceded it.
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It's like saying Sonic the Hedgehog is unoriginal because Super Mario Bros. preceded it.
Actually it kinda is. Very little in that game that hadn't been done before.
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You could use the same argument to say that men and women are virtually identical.
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You could use the same argument to say that men and women are virtually identical.
Not "virtually identical", we were talking about "unoriginal", which is true of the design of women, because God basically used the same blueprint and only made enough changes for Eve to serve as a companion creature to Adam.
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Not "virtually identical", we were talking about "unoriginal"...
That's not exactly a big distinction. Any inspired piece of work would not be considered 'original' then.
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I'll give you credit that the game is more similar to Angry Birds is than Scorched Earth is, but it is not 'almost identical'. You can't, for example, master Crush the Castle then suddenly be an expert at Angry Birds. It doesn't work the other way, either. The way the games are played is that different.
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Actually there are flash games out there that did what Angry Birds did before Angry Birds. Those games you mentioned... not so much.
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Angry Birds is fun and cute, but hardly anything more. It isn't even original.
Yeah, because firing projectiles to kill an enemy on contact is totally the same as firing projectiles to knock down a complex structure that would be a puzzle in itself even if the ballistic aspect were taken out of the game.
Originality of Angry Birds (Score:5, Insightful)
It is quite correct that physics-based games that involve targeting of parabolic trajectories are very old, dating back almost to the earliest days of computer gaming. Yet over all this time, such games have been at best mildly popular. So how is it that Angry Birds is a mega-hit when nearly everybody has played a game that is sort of like it?
I attribute its success to these factors:
1. Excellent puzzle design and progression. Key to a puzzle game is that the player must always feel challenged, but never frustrated enough to give up. In Angry Birds, it is possible to pass a level without a perfect score, reducing frustration, while still returning it to try to improve performance, maintaining replay value.
2. Excellent user interface. Touch control makes a big difference for games of this sort is a big asset to games of this sort. The use of a slingshot, as opposed to a cannon or catapult also makes the game more intuitive, as most everybody understands the dynamics, and the rubber band provides a visual cue to the trajectory. A dotted line shows you last trajectory for comparison. (For comparison, I took a look at Scorched Earth, a game identified by others--correctly--as similar, and after 5 minutes I still hadn't figured out how to control my trebuchet.
3. Engaging graphics. Puzzle games go well with bright, cartoony characters. The simple, cute characters and backgrounds amuse the player without distracting too much from the puzzles.
So basically, what we have is a triumph of execution--a classic concept finally done well.
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dating back almost to the earliest days of computer gaming.
I'd say to the earliest days of computer gaming, since Tennis for Two [wikipedia.org] could easily be considered the first computer game.
The crazyness (Score:3)
For me the game seems attractive due to a mix of simple, but challenging game play, simple but cute graphics and the whole audio choice which makes it feel like some sort of crazy mad house. Maybe people like crazy?
Re:The crazyness (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe people like crazy?
I did like crazy at one point in my life. Now I don't interact with my ex-wife anymore.
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Huh, you also? /. ;-)
Man, I'm so messed up financially now that I'm NOT 'saving money' by overspending the budget buying everything that happens to be 'on sale'...
Well, as sad consolation, at least NOW I can afford a computer and internet connection to reply on
Either that, or breaking things (Score:3)
The snow in the Christmas version kinda didn't behave correctly. It made me angry.
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Or maybe just breaking things. Glass, wood, rocks, pumpkins. Who doesn't like smashing a pumpkin?
Agreed. I think AB appeals to people for the same reasons bowling does.
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Or maybe just breaking things. Glass, wood, rocks, pumpkins. Who doesn't like smashing a pumpkin?
Agreed. I think AB appeals to people for the same reasons bowling does.
I, for one, don't get it. What's the connection between bowling and Good Eats?
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A simple puzzle game. That's the allure. Let's try not to over-analyze.
Yeah, but there are thousands of simple puzzle games. Why should this one be so much more popular?
Paper Toss (Score:2)
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I bet paper toss has lots of downloads but not much actual gameplay.
Angry Birds has a sort of continuously rewarding aspect to it that locks you in. And a curiosity thing that sucks you into doing the next level instead of putting it away and getting back to work when you accomplish one. Paper Toss just lets you see your throw go down a hole or bounce away, then gives you almost the identical problem to solve. Angry Birds gives you several to solve on the same screen, and many ways to accomplish them, an
Almost as gratifying as Gorillas.bas (Score:2)
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Moly/gorillas-bas [kongregate.com]
My first exposure to source code was BASIC on the Apple II in elementary school -- computer lab.
However, it wasn't until a year later when I got an IBM with MSDOS + QBasic, that I was able spend enough time with source code to discover how to program. The books were all gibberish to me, but learning via modifying GORILLAS.BAS was a satisfying / rewarding experience.
I've seen lots of today's young programmers enlightened by open sourced games (like Doom, Quak
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I loved that link! (Score:2)
Taking apart Gorrilas, Nibbles, and some GWbasic programs are what really fast-forwarded my understanding of programming. The fact that they were just sitting there in C:\DOS - for FREE! - was like finding treasure!
I'm going to show my wife this tonight and let her marvel at the wonders that came with DOS 6 :)
Bigger explosions, wider buildings, bigger sons, floating gorillas, smarter computer... Man I spent hours on that in Elementary.
-Matt
Finally! (Score:2)
Golf (Score:2)
Golf isn't too far off from the same basic concept, either.
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Except, in golf it's swine hitting birdies.
The sounds are the best part :-) (Score:3)
The physics is fun but the birds have character because of the sounds and I like that most - they're not precisely cute either which is also nice because soppy cuteness can be revolting :-) Other games often lack this kind of appeal as it's harder to describe than fps and explosions. If I was going to rant it would be about how brain dead and boring multi-million dollar games seem to be *because* the money drives out the personality.
Parabolic more challenging? (Score:2)
Seems obvious to me: hitting your target is more challenging, and thus it's more of an accomplishment, which is what games are all about. Imagine Scorched Earth [wikipedia.org] where there were no obstacles and you could just shoot straight at the enemy.
Or more likely (Score:2)
It's just a game that was lucky enough to become "cool" with kids and the next big thing in school fashion. Youth club leader friend says every kid who is anyone has that game. This is of course also true to a fair extent with adults. I'm sure it's not the first time this kind of thing has happened to some random lucky subject, be it a game or a pop star (Bieber?)
Or to put it more cynically and slashdotty, it is massively overhyped and managed to go viral.
Of course we have a parabolic instinct. (Score:2)
Nothing to do with parabolic instinct (Score:2)
For me, the enjoyment of Angry Birds has nothing to do with parabolic instinct. It has everything to do with causing destruction with different methods and giggling over the silly graphics and sounds. The game is entertaining. This feels like an attempt at a scientific explanation for popularity. Why can't a game just be fun?
Retard Game for Retard People (Score:2)
This article does a very good job of explaining why such a simple game is so intriguing.
I thinks it's more like it appeals to dim-witted people. Seriously. It's only the people who are a little bit slow that seem to like this retard game. Most of the more intelligent friends I have go for games that take a little bit of brain power. I can't understand for the life of me why it's a #1 app in the Apple store. On the iPhone or the iPod, you can't even see the whole field of play on the screen and you spend the whole time panning back-n-forth!
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Dude, you pinch to zoom in and out.
Who did you say was a retard, again?
Ok, now explain to me the Pet Rock. (Score:2)
Ok, the parabolic instinct explains Angry Birds, but now explain to me the Pet Rock, the Chia Pet, or anything sold by Ron Popeil. Sometimes people just fall for something inexplicably stupid and pointless. I'd write more about it, but I have to get back to World of Warcraft.
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Wasn't my first experience, but I wrote some AI for it when I was on holiday once, and the only computer around was an old 386 laptop. The opponents ranged from an artificial simulation of me which played pretty well, down to one of my brother - which I rather harshly set to throw the banana completely randomly, meaning he often destroyed himself! :)
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Yes! And ironically, one of Microsoft's best games was open source.
I haven't Seen This App... (Score:3)
...but is it anything like that Cheerleader tossing game on the web?
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/games/play/80505395/
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I'm wondering if he's ever seen a game of cricket, because if the bowler's sending it in a noticeable parabola he's doing it wrong. And is probably Australian.
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I'm wondering if he's ever seen a game of cricket, because if the bowler's sending it in a noticeable parabola he's doing it wrong. And is probably Australian.
So clearly he's only seen amateur Australians play cricket. Riddle solved.
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I'm wondering if the author has any clue that this gameplay mechanic is awesome, proven, and more than 30 years old.
Possibly. Or maybe he doesn't see the mechanics of a slingshot to be all that similar to those of a tank.
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Exactly what I was thinking.
Humans have a long history of throwing things at prey and predators, which is more or less unique to humans. Its a survival skill you never find in other animals.
Is the game tapping into the very thing that makes us different from every other hunter in the world?
Have we something in our brains uniquely tuned to calculating the arc, the throwing speed, angles, etc which this game (and those like it) exercise?
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The math is rather trivial, no different than the rest of the game.
Re:OK... (Score:5, Interesting)
What's with all the talk about this Angry Birds game everywhere?
It is the result of the way the AppStore and basically the whole Internet works. Some stuff gets to the top and then, by being on the top it enters a feedback loop: more people see it, thus more people buy and thus more people report about it, which in turn means more people will see it and buy it. This feedback loop then turns a decent game into such a blockbuster success. All those random flash games out there never entered into such a feedback loop and thus never got that popular.
This is one of those depressing things with modern technology. You have access to basically everything, which should mean more variety, but due to the self enforcing feedback everybody gets exposed to basically the same stuff and the result is less variety.
Re:OK... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure what the GP said (apart from the bit you quoted), nor do I know if anyone else said something more insightful than you did. But your post is +4, and I almost moderated it up to +5.
Then I decided to break the feedback loop and not mod you up. Viva variety! You're welcome.
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> It is the result of the way the AppStore and basically the whole
> Internet works. Some stuff gets to the top and then, by being
> on the top it enters a feedback loop: more people see it, thus
> more people buy and thus more people report about it, which
> in turn means more people will see it and buy it.
Replace "the AppStore and basically the whole Internet" with "pretty much everything everywhere"--movies, TV shows, cars, songs, restaurants, nightclubs... does anything NOT work like this?
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This is one of those depressing things with modern technology. You have access to basically everything, which should mean more variety, but due to the self enforcing feedback everybody gets exposed to basically the same stuff and the result is less variety.
Only if you're a sheep. Besides one man's lack of variety feed back loop is another man's sense of community. Technology gives you capabilities you'd otherwise not have. Choice is good.