By Ellie
‘Flappy birds’ is a very addictive app, created by Dong Nguyen. The objective of the game is to fly a bird, with only one simple rule. The simple rule is to tap. If you hit a pipe, the game is over, so you have to go through the pipes. Each time you go through a pipe, you gain a point.
The app was created in 2012, and then released for iPhone 5 in May 2013. Shortly after, in September 2013, the app became available for ios7. This allowed it to be used on iPad and any product that had ios7.
In the past month, ‘Flappy birds’ has become more popular than the creator and the developers (.GEARS studio) had planned. On February 1st, the extraordinary app managed to hit #1 on the app store. Anybody who managed to get a global hit and be earning £50,000 per day would be over the moon, but not Dong Nguyen?
The game was known to be impossible, and Dong Nguyen didn’t like the thought of that, and has claimed, ‘None of my games were designed to be impossible.’ Nguyen was already upset at the thought of his game being ‘impossible’ so the game becoming more popular wasn’t going to help. Through the early days of 2014, the game became more and more popular.
An online marketer, Carter Thomas, witnessed how quickly ‘Flappy Birds’ grew so popular in such short space of time, and accused Nguyen of using bots to make the app more popular. Nguyen replied with a tweet on twitter, ‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t you think? ...If I did fake it, should Apple let it live for months.’ More days passed, and more people downloaded the free app on the android and app store. Nguyen didn’t like the publicity, and politely refused to be present at interviews, and tried to stay as quiet as possible. Nguyen then decided he has had enough of everything, so announced on twitter, ‘I am sorry flappy bird users, 22 hours from now, I will take flappy bird down. I cannot take this anymore.’ That was tweeted on 8 February. 22 hours later, as was announced, Flappy Birds was removed from Google play and the app store. Nguyen has apparently added, ‘I shall still make games, but I don’t want Flappy Birds present on the app store. That was too much too handle.’
The app was created in 2012, and then released for iPhone 5 in May 2013. Shortly after, in September 2013, the app became available for ios7. This allowed it to be used on iPad and any product that had ios7.
In the past month, ‘Flappy birds’ has become more popular than the creator and the developers (.GEARS studio) had planned. On February 1st, the extraordinary app managed to hit #1 on the app store. Anybody who managed to get a global hit and be earning £50,000 per day would be over the moon, but not Dong Nguyen?
The game was known to be impossible, and Dong Nguyen didn’t like the thought of that, and has claimed, ‘None of my games were designed to be impossible.’ Nguyen was already upset at the thought of his game being ‘impossible’ so the game becoming more popular wasn’t going to help. Through the early days of 2014, the game became more and more popular.
An online marketer, Carter Thomas, witnessed how quickly ‘Flappy Birds’ grew so popular in such short space of time, and accused Nguyen of using bots to make the app more popular. Nguyen replied with a tweet on twitter, ‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t you think? ...If I did fake it, should Apple let it live for months.’ More days passed, and more people downloaded the free app on the android and app store. Nguyen didn’t like the publicity, and politely refused to be present at interviews, and tried to stay as quiet as possible. Nguyen then decided he has had enough of everything, so announced on twitter, ‘I am sorry flappy bird users, 22 hours from now, I will take flappy bird down. I cannot take this anymore.’ That was tweeted on 8 February. 22 hours later, as was announced, Flappy Birds was removed from Google play and the app store. Nguyen has apparently added, ‘I shall still make games, but I don’t want Flappy Birds present on the app store. That was too much too handle.’