F**k Angry Birds. That game is the antithesis to Minecraft. A massively, stupidly successful game that has absolutely no innovative or redeemable values. It’s just a decent game. It’s well made. And that’s it. Nothing special. Exactly the same as 3,000 different free Flash physics puzzlers that came before it.
URG I hate that game.
It could also be that they happened to know the right person to talk to the right person with the money.
Though I usually like to believe its a little bit of at least a half decent game, good connection, provable and solid profits, reputation, and a little chance and luck 
Many things happen behind the closed doors and curtains.
[quote=“namrog84,post:2,topic:36902”]
I disagree; if your aim is to get lots of users then you should build it with the aim to get lots of users. If you don’t get users, then you’ve failed your aim and did it wrong. That is not to imply there is a formula, and most (but not all) popular games also tend to be good games (even if they are not that ground breaking), but there are things you can do to help make it more desirable to play.
Angry Birds is a good example. I’ve played lots of those catapult style games, even before Angry Birds was out. Angry Birds graphics are not that ground breaking, but they are polished, where as most of the clones I have played have always had ‘programmers’ graphics. The idea of shooting birds is also much more novel then just boring rocks. I’d bet if Angry Birds was just ‘Generic Catapult Slinger’ with worse graphics then it wouldn’t have sold anywhere near as many copies, and it’s that sort of thing that I am referring to when I say there are things you can do to make a game more popular.
JL235
I didn’t mean you should make a fun game with crappy graphics.
You should still make a well rounded polished game in all aspects.
I had meant it more of, don’t choose to make a angry birds game because you think it will draw in a ton of people, if you personally hate catapult games.
If you like shoot em ups or platformers for example. make a platformer, but by all means. Make it the best damn polished, fancy, marketed platformer you possibly can.