[Infographic] The Mystery Behind the Addiction That is “Angry Birds”

Snapshot

Angry Birds apps have created a huge following with a majority of users feeling relaxed and occasionally addicted when playing. The most susceptible are single young males who will pay and play on an Android device. The psychological factors driving users are its easy to learn, rewarding, realistic, and funny.

Key Points

Angry Birds has been download over 300 million times since 2009, forecasted to reach 1 billion.
The total user base logs in 200 million minutes per day, equal to 16yrs of gameplay per hour.
Angry Birds has three games Angry Birds (76% free, 45% paid), Angry Birds Seasons (29% free, 14% paid), and Angry Birds Rio (28% free, 16% paid).
Males are more likely to buy these apps than females by 35%, 18-24yr olds are more likely to buy these apps than 25+ yrs old by 33%, and 18-24 yr old males are more likely to buy then 25+ yr old females by 76%.
Creators of these apps, Rovio, are valued at $1 billion+.
Out of the three free Angry Bird apps downloaded by 1000 users surveyed, who have played the apps at least 25 times, 4% have downloaded 1, 29% downloaded 1 or 2, and 38% downloaded all 3.
Out of the three priced Angry Bird apps downloaded by those same 1000 users surveyed, who have played on the apps at least 25 times, 53% paid for none, 22% paid for 1, 11% for 2, and 14% for 3.
The top devices these apps were download on include Android (41%), iPod Touch (33%), iPhone (32%), PC (25%), iPad (15%), Mac (6%), and others devices at 6%.
Playing these apps makes people most often feel somewhat relaxed (32%), very relaxed (23%), neither relaxed nor anxious (22%), somewhat anxious (17%), and very anxious (6%).
The typical effect on moods experienced by players after one session were mostly improved (58%), but some were unchanged (37%) or worsened (5%).
Of those whose mood worsened after one play session unemployed users were twice as likely to feel anxiety and 2.25 times more likely to get angry. where as 18-24 yr olds were 5 times more likely to be in a worse mood than 25+ yr olds.
When it comes to single versus married users, both are equally likely to feel happy when playing but single’s are 7 times and 2.5 times more likely to feel sad and angry, respectively.
Versus other games, single vs married players are 9 times more likely to have worse moods after play.
The top feelings sometimes felt as a result of playing are joy (53%), relaxation (50%), mastery (39%).
The users of these apps feel addicted occasionally (54%), never (18%), often (15%), and always (13%).
Micheal Chorost a Ph.D an psychologist feels the game is addictive because it is easy to learn, rewarding, realistic, and funny.
18-34 yr old are 3 times more likely to feel addicted than 35+ yr olds and singles are twice as likely to also feel addicted as compared to married gamers.
12% of users have deleted the game and 12% have also thought about deleting it but not acted on it, while the majority 76% still have the app on their devices.