There is no "what the audience wants" there are markets and things that sell well in certain markets. This sold well in a certain market for many reasons that

There is no "what the audience wants" there are markets and things that sell well in certain markets. This sold well in a certain market for many reasons that are hard to predict and study. Flappy bird is not displacing revenue from AAA studios and AAA studios still shouldn't be concerned what the next flappy bird is. They're too busy researching, analyzing, and developing the next multi-hundred-million-dollar videogame franchise that fits into the markets they understand. Just because some game gets a lot of attention, doesn't mean that it's signalling a paradigm shift or that everyone else has it wrong.