Angry Birds is one of the most successful mobile game apps ever invented. More than 1 billion downloads across all digital platforms can attest to its global popularity.

Now Rovio Entertainment, the company behind Angry Birds, hopes to follow that success with Bad Piggies—a game that extends the brand by allowing the pigs, which were limited to target status in the first game, to seek revenge on their beaked assailants.

These must be exciting times for Rovio’s PR experts, but the act of creating a mobile video game app that connects with the public in a big way is a game in itself—a game worth millions and millions of dollars. Rovio’s PR team must be asking themselves what, exactly, causes some video games to resonate with the public while others disappear with little notice. Is it the challenge? The creative marketing campaigns? Could it be the quirkiness, characters and design?

Angry Birds, which debuted in 2009, was an instant hit that may have prompted the world’s first wave of app addiction; it seemed to become everyone’s favorite game overnight. The wingless fowl were equally popular with kids sitting in the back pew at church and adults taking the 6 train into downtown Manhattan.

It’s too bad we can’t simply dissect the success of Angry Birds like a frog in biology class and see what makes the magic happen. Sure, the game comes complete with compelling challenges and soul-satisfying level advancements, but it had to please the public to succeed–and as we all know, the public can be unpredictable.

Will Bad Piggies succeed? We won’t know for a while now, but we will take great pleasure in following the game’s Thursday launch and analyzing the public’s reaction.

That’s our addiction.