We’re sure by now you’ve caught wind of the “addictive” smart phone game “Flappy Bird.” It was one with a simple premise: Tap on your smart phone screen to navigate a pixellated bird through narrow corridors of green pipes. Hit a pipe and you die. The end. Well, it also happens to be the end for the game.
Despite the reported $50,000 a day in ad revenue it was pulling in, Vietnamese games developer Dong Nguyen took Flappy Bird down on February 9, 2014, causing something like an uproar with users now selling their pre-Flappy demise phones for thousands on re-sale sites such as eBay.
The mystery all started when the developer, Dong Nguyen, tweeted that he would be taking down the app in 22 hours, and then stuck to his word and did just that. With hundreds of thousands being made in revenue, the idea that Dong Nguyen would just pull the plug was strange in itself. The only thing stranger came in his interview with Forbes Magazine, where he admitted he pulled the app because it was “too addictive.”
As reported by Forbes:
“Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,” says Dong Nguyen, in an exclusive interview, his first since he pulled the plug on the app. “But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”
In killing Flappy Bird for what he maintains are altruistic reasons, Nguyen is walking away from a jackpot. An article in the Verge last week estimated his daily take from in-app advertising at $50,000. Nguyen declined to confirm that number. “I don’t know the exact figure, but I do know it’s a lot.”
“My life has not been as comfortable as I was before” – that motivated him. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. He added that his conscience is relieved; he spent the past few days, Internet-free, catching up on slumber.
“I don’t think it’s a mistake,” he says. “I have thought it through.”
While Dong Nguyen has no plans of bringing the game back, there are plenty of copy-cat apps making their way into the App stores attempting to capitalize on Flappy Bird fame. It all sounds a bit extreme for a game. Check out some of the ridiculously priced listings on eBay to see for yourself.
SOURCE: FORBES | PHOTO CREDIT: Flappy Bird
