This weekend was pretty surreal for people who follow the mobile gaming scene, as Pokemon Go [Free] seems to be hitting harder than Flappy Bird. Crazier, yet, as of this writing, it isn't even available in most places of the world yet. If you weren't around for the Flappy Bird phenomenon, it was truly incredible, as seemingly one random morning practically every person with an iPhone suddenly was playing Flappy Bird. Similarly, every single social media service I use was packed with people I know, many who aren't even into video games at all, going on real-world adventures to collect Pokemon in Pokemon Go.
When looking at how hard a mobile game suddenly hits, Flappy Bird provides an interesting point of comparison, as its relative popularity compared to other things on the internet at the time was borderline unbelievable. I remember putting this article together back in 2014 when it seemed all that anyone cared about was Flappy Bird, even when compare to several other very viral things that seemingly everyone was into. From the article:
The above graph displays Google trend data between Flappy Bird which again is blue, Psy's smash hit Gangnam Style in red, the confusingly popular video meme Harlem Shake in yellow, pop star Justin Bieber in green, and finally, Lady Gaga in purple. What's supremely interesting to me about this chart in particular, is that more people are searching for Flappy Bird than there were people looking up Justin Bieber following his arrest, which was...