Candy Crush Addiction

One day my friend mentioned to me that she was suddenly craving for candy because she was playing Candy Crush. At that moment, it hit me that Candy Crush was subliminally advertising candy and encouraging people to eat it. I also thought about how it would be easy for candy companies to advertise Candy Crush on their products to get consumers to buy them just like how many companies advertised Angry Birds during it’s phase of popularity to get consumers to buy them. Everyone wants to get in on the hottest thing on the market and right now, it’s Candy Crush. If you don’t know anything about the game, here are a couple of fun facts:

• According to ThinkGaming.com, Candy Crush earns $850,000 per day and it’s still the highest grossing game in the App Store
• According to AppData, Candy Crush is one of the all-time most addicting online games with 700 million games played every day on mobile devices alone
• According to AppData, there are more than 100 million people playing the game
• According to King, the creator of Candy Crush, only 30% of players makes in-app purchases

Initially, I just thought Candy Crush was another one of those addictive games that people would play and eventually stop playing but the game was released over a year ago and there are still millions of people playing it. I’m sure King is sitting on a throne because of this game. It always boggles my mind how people can come up with simple yet brilliant ideas and succeed! I’m sure King did a ton of research on their target market and tested this game out before releasing it but I doubt they expected this much success. Candy Crush is truly an innovative game because it’s very different from other games and the creators made a very successful game through discovery and experimenting. How so you might ask? Well they made observations on what types of games people like and experimented by having people test it out and eventually released it to find out how the game will turn out. It seems like they are still experimenting with the game because they are consistently releasing new levels every week and also it periodically asks you to rank the level from boring to fun. It seems like they want to be consistently innovative, keep their players happy, and stay successful. Being a Candy Crush addict myself, I can’t wait to see what King comes out with next!

Ramen Burger Phenomenon

My sister randomly sent me a picture of a weird looking burger that looked like ramen noodles in a bun shape and a burger patty in the middle. She followed up with a text that said “ramen burger.” Due to my curiosity, I Googled it right away to find out more information about it and why I didn’t know about it prior to her text. I learned that it just debuted at a food fair in Brooklyn and it was created by Keizo Shimamoto in New York. One of the first thoughts that came to my mind was, “why didn’t I think of this before?” It seemed like a simple yet innovative and creative idea that is profitable and successful. People will wait in long lines just to try a ramen burger made by Shimamoto. Thanks to him, I’m sure there are tons of restaurants and food trucks everywhere trying to create a copycat just to get in on the profits and success.

Part of being innovative is truly observing and understanding other innovative ideas. A ramen burger might seem like a simple thing but the bottom line is that it is still an innovation. I found it incredibly fascinating that someone thought of this idea because it’s noodles plus a burger patty. I might someday want to create something innovative with food and if I do, I would go observe Shimamoto and other innovative chefs to brainstorm ideas.