If you were expecting to see players of the Flappy Bird app fall victim to the geeker behavior shown by Candy Crush and Farmville users, think again. Dong Nguyen, the creator of the hottest game for smartphones since the aforementioned Candy Crush, recently said he pulled the game from circulation, in his words, “forever.”
Reportedly the game was netting Nguyen more than $50K a day and he still had the conscious to delete it.
In an interview with Forbes, the 29-year-old Vietnamese developer said his clients and fans were becoming too addicted to the game, and took it upon himself to pull the plug before he was responsible for a legion of worthless bird flappers.
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.”
Nguyen claimed that Flappy Bird had “ruined his simple life” by attracting too much attention from a critical games press or unpleasant players.
Flappy Bird was released for free on May 24, 2013 first for iOS with little fanfare by a Vietnam-based developer called .GEARS. Nguyen says he coded the game over two or three days.
In mulling whether to pull Flappy Bird, Nguyen said that it was guilt – atop the fact that “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.”
No word as of yet if the game’s likeness of Angry Birds or Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. pipes had anything to do with the decision, although Nguyen maintains it didn’t.
Nguyen’s self-righteous struggle of becoming too rich didn’t sit well with some fans, with eBay sales of iPhones with the game installed going up to $94K.
Proceed on to the gallery to see the loads of knockoffs Nguyen allowed to entire the mix since his departure.
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Photo: Flappy Bird iOS, Forbes
