Angry Birds, Flocking to Cellphones Everywhere
Even the title is pretty absurd! The story is about a cellphone game that has gotten really popular. The quotes in combination with the random collection of anecdotes about crazy and ridiculous things people are doing on behalf of the game, make the story incredibly entertaining.
Lead:
It sounds like a tough sell: a game that involves catapulting birds at elaborate fortresses constructed by evil pigs.It's an effective delayed lead. The journalist went right for the kill by capturing the most ridiculous aspect of the whole story in the first sentence.
Parenthesis Use in an Effective Way:
Rovio says people around the world rack up 200 million minutes of game play each day. (Put another way, that is 16 human-years of bird-throwing every hour.)The inclusion of this aside makes the previous sentence all the more interesting. Translation of facts in the terms what a reader can swallow is an effective way to use parenthesis. The journalist could have just said the figure in the parenthesis and dropped the previous line completely, but this setup is more effective in catching the reader off guard.
Larger Theme:
“There’s no more formula,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research who studies digital entertainment. “It doesn’t matter where it starts: a ringtone, a video game, book. It has a shot at the big time.”The story seems to have a general underlying message and its actually pretty inspiring. The journalist draws attention to the fact that this ridiculous cell phone game means that anyone can be successful --- YOU and ME can make it big too, if Angry Birds can.
Humor:
My favorite anecdote was the one where a woman spent 80 hours crafting a two tiered Angry Birds cake for her son's birthday, which he won't let anyone cut. Pictures of the cake circulated on social media.
I also really enjoyed the ending quote of the article where a professor postulates that Rovio's success is because they made the birds angry, rather than happy. The ending subtely frames the story by pointing to the original sentence of the whole article, which is that there is no real explanation for why Angry Birds got so popular.
It is an unusual and fun story indeed. I loved the frowning birds and the adorable cake. I liked how the story included perspectives from various angles like fans who dress up as Angry Birds for Halloween, or a mother whose child is obsessed with Angry Birds or a college professor who studies game design. Also the article provided context to those who don't know anything about the game as well as about the game''s popularity. I was missing a quote, however, from someone who simply loathes or detests the game by calling it ridiculous or something..just for balance:)
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