Angry Birds Invasion! A Look At The Crazy, Random, Squawkin' Awesome Phenomenon
March 30, 2011
UMD Assistant Professor Jason Farman looks into the Angry Birds mobile gaming craze.
UMD Assistant Professor Jason Farman looks into the Angry Birds mobile gaming craze.
By Jordan Bartel, The Baltimore Sun
Angry Birds players don’t care what you think. They don’t care if you judge them as they play everywhere — as they wait for a table at a restaurant, a doctor’s appointment, a drink at a bar.
All they care about is using their cadre of birds to fend off evil pigs who stole their eggs.
... Angry Birds has been an interesting case study in mobile gaming for Jason Farman. An assistant professor at the University of Maryland College Park’s digital cultures and creativity program, Farman studies computing culture and mobile technology. He says Angry Birds demands low time investment and yields high, personal reward — you earn stars and developing trajectory strategies as the game progresses. And there are two divergent social aspects to it.
“On one hand, there’s an antisocial aspect. People use mobile phones to cocoon themselves in public environments, and you see people playing the game on the metro,” Farman said. “On the other hand, there’s a real pleasure in watching each other play the game. The story is thin here, but it’s enough to keep us going.”
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