If you live in the present then you’ve surely been taken captive by this funny, annoying little bird in the popular game Flappy Bird. It is a game that has been followed in the last two weeks like a cult. If you hit Instagram right now and search the tag #flappybird you’ll be amazed at the multitudes out there being made miserable by that tiny annoying lifeless bird. So popular is the game that its creator, indie games developer Dong Nguyen, is reportedly earning over $50,000 per day from ad revenues generated by the game. There’s something curious though. Why would someone making that kind of money want to quit… eer take down the source of that cash?
In a series of postings on his Twitter account (see screenshot below), Nguyen says that he’ll be pulling down Flappy Bird from the app stores in the next few hours. He says that this has nothing to do with legal issues but rather to get away from the spotlight and media limelight the game has put him in. Perhaps if reviews on the Play Store and general comments about the difficulty of the game on the internet are anything to go by then he must really be feeling the heat. Flappy Bird is one of those few things in life that can make you feel very stupid, hate yourself and lower your self esteem. Yes esteem. When Google Play Games shows that your circled friends are doing 200+ and you can’t even go past the first barrier. Its that bad. You will cry for your ribs if you read people’s woes on the internet starting with the entries on Urban Dictionary. Still, is that enough to make Nguyen pull from the app stores such a popular game? Is he simply trying to bring more attention to his other games?
Nguyen gave a timeline of 22 hours within which he’ll have pulled down the game from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store (it never made it to the Windows Phone Store, just hordes of clones over there). I guess for those who’ve installed the game on their devices they’ll still be able to play it while new installations won’t be possible save for backed up apks (for Android users). My advise: while the game is very annoying and frustrating, please keep a backup of the app just in case. Flappy bird remains the number one game on both app stores and it is sad to see it go (if indeed it will be pulled down).
