Flappy Bird fans all atwitter after creator pulls high-flying game
FLAPPY Bird creator Nguyen Ha Dong last night pulled the plug on his high-flying and addictive game after announcing, “I cannot take this anymore”.
The Vietnam-based games developer, whose deceptively simple free mobile game flew to the top in popularity at the Apple App Store and Google Android Play store, tweeted earlier, “22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down”. He wrote “It is not anything related to legal issues”, “I also don’t sell ‘Flappy Bird’, please don’t ask”.
Flappy Bird became a worldwide sensation, with the Android version downloaded up to 50m times. Users have to steer a bird between green pipes and tap the screen to maintain the right altitude.
Dong could not be reached for comment after he stopped sales of the game, which was earning around $50,000 a day from advertising.
“I can call ‘Flappy Bird’ is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it,” he tweeted.
While those who have downloaded Flappy Bird will still be able to play, fans yesterday mourned the game.
Thousands began using the hashtags #RIPFlappyBird and #SaveFlappyBird.
However Dong, whose free games Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block are also popular, did have one piece of good news: “And I still make games.”