Why Did Flappy Bird Get Deleted by Its Own Creator?

Every so usually, a brand new cell sport takes informal avid gamers by storm. We’ve been by eras conquered by Bejeweled, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Temple Run, and Wordle, simply to call a number of. And who might blame folks for hopping on these? For all intents and functions, they’re straightforward to obtain, straightforward to play, and exhausting to place down. They’re excellent for fast commutes, boring toilet breaks, and procrastinating on work. Flappy Bird was simply amongst one of many greats when it was launched.

This cell sport, developed by Vietnamese sport designer Dong Nguyen, was launched in May 2013. After receiving publicity from YouTubers like PewDiePie, the sport acquired an enormous inflow of recent gamers and finally topped gross sales charts for a number of app shops. During its launch, the sport was reportedly raking in over $50,000 a day in in-game promoting. Success like that’s uncommon sufficient by itself, which is why it got here as a shock for a lot of when the sport was deleted.

What occurred to Flappy Bird?

Flappy Bird was a cell sport through which gamers managed a tiny chicken named Faby. As Faby strikes to the appropriate, gamers needed to faucet the display screen to get Faby to hop and navigate by gaps in oncoming pipes whereas remaining within the air, with factors accumulating for every pipe efficiently handed. If Faby collides with a pipe or touches the bottom at any level, it leads to a Game Over and gamers’ scores are reset. However, gamers might acquired medals based mostly on what number of pipes they cleared.

The sport was easy sufficient by itself, but it surely was partaking sufficient for everybody for folks to get hooked on, resulting in its aforementioned success. However, it was that addictive nature of the sport that finally led to its removing.

On Feb. 8, 2014, Dong Nguyen introduced on Twitter that he would take away Flappy Bird from app shops.

His assertion reads, “I’m sorry, Flappy Bird customers. 22 hours from now, I’ll take Flappy Bird down. I can’t take this anymore.” True to his phrase, the sport was eliminated the next day.

In subsequent interviews, Dong revealed that he was negatively impacted by folks’s rising addictions to the sport. Speaking to Daily Mail in 2023, Dong said that he was confronted by followers and anxious mother and father on the addictive nature of the sport. He even reportedly acquired a number of DMs claiming that his sport was stifling folks’s productiveness. This, coupled with an onslaught of paparazzi for his rising fame on the time, led him to take away the sport totally to revive peace to his personal life.

There was some fallout following the sport’s removing. Shortly after it was deleted, retailers took to eBay to try to promote their smartphones that also had the sport downloaded on them. Some bids reached upwards of $90,000. These exchanges have been short-lived, nevertheless, as promoting these telephones violated eBay’s TOS stating that telephones needed to be restored to manufacturing unit settings earlier than being bought, which might delete the sport anyway.

As of this writing, Dong Nguyen continues to design indie video games. In 2014, he even launched a more moderen model of Flappy Bird with a multiplayer component and toned down the design to be “much less addictive.”

It’s secure to say, nevertheless, that he doesn’t look again on the success of the unique Flappy Bird fondly.