What's the secret of Candy crush?

Candy crush, a game that got popular in an insane way, brings 600,000 USD to its developers every single day. The game has become one of the most downloaded apps on smart phones and its yearly profits are estimated to be 230 million dollars. This means that if candy crush remained popular for 5 more years it will bring one billion dollars to the company that developed it.

The reason any person does any behaviour or gets addicted to anything is always psychological ,however, most people usually don't understand why they do the things they are doing and even believe that they are doing them for totally different reasons. (see also Why do some people act in a weird way)

When it comes to candy crush people will tell you that they like it because its interesting, challenging and entertaining but show them any of the games that have a very similar concept to it and ask them why they preferred candy crush over them and they won't be able to answer.

So why is candy Crush so popular?

Lets first agree on a concept. The reason a games becomes popular is because of the emotions it arouses in people and the psychological experience that lets them go through. Here are some of the reasons that made candy crush highly addictive:

1) Nostalgia: Almost all people have something for the beautiful past. As soon as someone starts to play candy crush the images of candies and sweets unconsciously brings him some of the sweet childhood memories. The game allows those who miss the past to time travel without actually noticing that they are doing it (see also What causes nostalgia)
2) The psychological anchor: I have said earlier that two different factors could get associated together in your mind in such a way that the appearance one of them reminds you of the other. Now because most people associate pleasant emotions with sweets and candies they actually experience instant happiness as soon as they see the game screen of candy crush (see also What is a psychological anchor
3) The unexpected reward: Why do you think some people waste all their money on slot machines in Casinos? Its because studies have shown that an unexpected reward can drive a person mad and motivate him to eagerly seek more rewards. Candy crush has a lot of things that unexpectedly happen that can make you win the game. An unplanned move can result in the elimination of other columns and rows that you didn't plan to remove.
4) The frustration-relief cycle: As soon as you realize that you can't arrange candies in proper order you will get extremely frustrated. Now when you do a correct move this frustration will get reduced a bit but it might rise again when you get stuck another time. Now this cycle of getting frustrated then relieved makes the game extremely addictive since no one wants to remain frustrated forever. So in fact Candy crush frustrates people then shows them the way to feel good once again. (see also Motivation and needs)
5) Jealousy & Competition: Candy crush is connected to facebook in such a way that you can see your progress compared to your friends' progress. Now this kind of competition motivates people to do their best to bypass their competitors. (see also Jealousy and competition)
6) Self esteem boost: In the Solid Self confidence program i said that people sometimes become addicted to certain habits just because they help them raise their self esteem. Candy crush posts the level a person has reached to his facebook wall thus giving him a self esteem boost. When someone reaches a far level he automatically translates this to having a smart brain and thus he feels better about himself
7) The pleasant feelings of mastery: When someone masters a certain skill he feels great about himself as a result of the release of happiness hormones. Now because candy crash isn't hard to learn within few minutes or hours a person can find himself doing more complicated moves and winning levels faster.

Final words about Gaming psychology

For the first instance Candy crush might seem like a game that is interesting because of its game play but when you look deeper you will discover that game play itself is nothing more than some psychological feelings that people experience while playing a game.

The previous reasons might not be all the ones that made candy crush popular as there might be some additional ones but the conclusion i want you to come up with is that once you understand how your brain interacts with the world you will get to know why you sometimes become addicted to certain things.

2knowmyself is not a complicated medical website nor a boring online encyclopedia but rather a place where you will find simple, to the point and effective information that is backed by psychology and presented in a simple way that you can understand and apply. If you think that this is some kind of marketing hype then see what other visitors say about 2knowmyself.

The Solid confidence program was launched by 2knowmyself.com; the program will either help you become more confident or give you your money back.

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