Games follow a trendline like te^-rt where t is time and r dependent on the game. The reason is simple. When a person learns of some piece of content (game, meme, whatever) there is some probability they share it with one or more people. If on average each person exposed shares with more than one person then you get an exponential explosion (aka virality). But sharing content with people who have already seen it is redundant. Eventually the average new people shared with per person exposed becomes less than one and the exponential growth becomes exponential decay. Content where r is large explode quickly and die quickly (blue/black dress). Content where r is just barely greater than 0 have a slow rise and slow decline.
The only game to ever become a lasting cultural phenomena via internet virality is Minecraft. The reason is that the r value is small enough that population growth during the games lifetime is non-negligible.
The only game to ever become a lasting cultural phenomena via internet virality is Minecraft. The reason is that the r value is small enough that population growth during the games lifetime is non-negligible.