Take the Texas Hold’Em Poker as an example, it is basically another poker game -- "technically nothing remarkable". I installed the app and tried a few rounds, design is not top-dollar job, either. But it won about 20m users.
Why?
Reason is that (personal view) execution matters, and execution need to be quick. Besides these, it is a Zynga game -- the company spent a lot of money on advertising.
So, if idea is cheap, then execution matters, and that needs to be done in a very fast way.
Another thing we can learn from Texas Hold’Em Poker is that although the UI sucks, the logic behind this game, or the way it keeps its gamers MUST NOT suck. I mean, there must be something that "binds" the gamer to the game. The "7 sins" was a very very good illustration -- I knew this, but I couldn't find a nice word until last night. Yes, it satisfies people's greed, envy and pride -- these are the very things are keeps gamers in the game -- that is why we have people creating multiple accounts, "shifting" money from one account to another.
Similar situation in China, where the government is taking strong actions against those online games that include violence, "level up to unlock more places, events, items..." ... all of which are very harmful to teenagers.
I mean, to be a "successful" game, one of the (fast and profitable) ways is to insert elements that instills people's wrath, envy, pride .... -- but this seems unethical to me.
A third thing I learn from this poker game (indirectly) is that : it takes much to be good, but it takes little to be BAD - real bad. It really takes much consideration (for the user) to be a good piece of software, which becomes a "master"piece, whereas putting money in the first place, money indeed comes as a result sometimes, but it will not last long. I feel I am talking without argument and anyhow came about with this idea, maybe it is because I really do not have much interest in gaming bah.
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