Celebrity Net Worth Wrote:Earlier today, Vietnamese game developer Dong Nguyen announced that in 22 hours he will be shutting down his most famous creation, the maddeningly addictive game Flappy Bird. Why is this so shocking? Flappy Bird happens to be the #1 game for both the Apple iOS and Android operating systems. Not shocked yet? What if I told you that Dong Nguyen is just 29 years old and created the game in under two hours? Still not shocked? What if I told you that Dong Nguyen earns $50,000 PER DAY from the game? What's even crazier is the fact that Dong has no intention selling his game. He's simply shutting it down because he's sick of the overwhelming attention and stress he has received from the game's popularity. wtp!!??
Kotaku Wrote:"People prefer imperfect things," the creator of the incredibly popular, loved, hated and now-notorious Flappy Bird, Dong Nguyen, mused over Twitter last March, long before most anyone had ever heard of him or played his game. He was stating why he thought he'd be okay launching a video game that included some bugs. "They need something they can comment as a constructive feedback."
Nguyen has received ample feedback over the last several weeks about Flappy Bird, his maddeningly difficult game about flying a yellow bird between a series of vertical green pipes. Some of the feedback has been positive, some of it brutal, some of it from happy gamers, some from angry gamerssome of it from from gamers so infuriated by the difficult yet charming Flappy Bird that in a roundabout way they'd seemingly come to love it. Some of it's come from the press, including one regrettable piece from Kotaku. I'll get to that, but, first, more about Nguyen's journey.
For a time earlier this year, the Hanoi-based Nguyen merrily retweeted a lot of the feedback he got. He was seemingly in on his own joke that his free game was so difficult that it drove some of its players up the wall.
"Dear creator of Flappy Bird," one person Tweeted at him in late January as the game was rocketing to the top of the iTunes charts, "I hate you. Go die in a hole."
"Sorry but I won't :-)," he replied.
"I hate you and your stupid pineappleing game!" another wrote, around the same time. "I mean I hit one feather on a pipe and die! How realistic is that?!?"1
"Please don't expect realistic in games," Nguyen replied, "Beside, I think my games are not for everybody."
"As you created flappy bird," someone wrote, "can you make me win?"
"No, I cannot," he answered. "It's just a game. Take care of yourself first. I don't make game to ruin people lives."
A couple of days later, someone asked him, "How many death threats do you get a day?"
"Few hundreds," he answered.
Since late January, Nguyen has replied to dozens of gamers day after day, addressing bugs, explaining the game's medal system, seemingly laughing off the angry and/or mock-angry Tweets sent his way, seeming to take his success in good stride.
Related
Flappy Bird is Gone
Flappy Bird is officially no more. True to the word of the game's creator, Dong Nguyen, the app is gone from both Google Play and the iTunes App Read
But this weekend, as the success of Flappy Bird seemed to cast more of a pall over Nguyen, he pulled his game from the iOS and Android stores.
"I cannot take this anymore," he wrote on Twitter.
It's not clear what the "this" is. It might have simply been the high volume of attention he was getting that he seemed compelled to reply to. It might have been blowback he was getting from people who were suspicious about how Flappy Bird and other games he has made, released in May of 2013, suddenly shot up in popularity around the same time late last year. It might have been attacks on him due to the game's art style, that last category of which my own outlet regrettably contributed to with a ham-fisted article last week about Nguyen's Flappy Bird game including so-called "ripped" art from Super Mario games. It might have been any of that. It might have been none of that. (Nguyen has previously declined to do interviews and was not approached for this story.)
I can't shake the feeling that this is largely a sad story. This is a story about a developer whose game rose to prominence in the unlikeliest of ways and became improbably beloved by tons of gamers despiteor because ofits rough edges and yet appears to have become distressed by the success of his creation.
My son informed me of this quite happily the other day. He seems to believe the real reason is legal issues with Nintendo (the Super Mario art ripoff mentioned in the article).
SaptaZapta Wrote:My son informed me of this quite happily the other day. He seems to believe the real reason is legal issues with Nintendo (the Super Mario art ripoff mentioned in the article).
"He's simply shutting it down because he's sick of the overwhelming attention and stress he has received from the game's popularity."
People can be ruthless.
I kind of understand where he's coming from.
Satellite Wrote:Well he did say it wasn't legal issues
Yeah, son doesn't believe it. He puts heavy double quotes around "it's not legal issues".
Me, I don't know. Maybe the guy just figured he has enough $$$ now to be happy for a while, and doesn't need the hassle anymore.
He's probably set for life with all that money he got everyday.
Also, the title... "Flabby Bird" getting fat making that money.
I can expect a lot of spite came from indie devs. Imagine living on the dollar, scrounging to keep afloat, working hard making games, hoping to break out someday, then someone makes a game like Flappy Bird and gets all the money and fame.
Or just really jealous people... or stupid people... idk.
Link
He answered "It was just too addictive", it seems not likely an acceptable reason to me :f6:
My opinion, since he's also Vietnamese.
Spoiler
I'm just sad about how many people in my country interact with that phenomenon, some newspapers trying their best to analyze why he's so lucky, argue that his app is nothing but a trash, too many youth jealous about his success, I can't believe that in the internet society there are young man that so selfish and arrogant. I kind of understand why our native newspapers have no way to interview Dong while other tech blogs can still be able to contact with him.
Even now then, "when his app is no longer downloadable" (in fact it can still be downloaded from Appstore Vietnam, but not everyone knows about it), they turn to jealous about his income (in case of you guys don't know, income is one important aspect that Vietnamese cares quite a lot, when your relative, friends, family... reunion and talking about your work, you will be asked "What's your income?" eventually)
About his tax, since his group .GEARS is not a company so it will be more likely personal tax, which mean it can goes up to 35% of his income. He assured that he will fulfill his duty and trying to find a way to decrease that.
While our goverment seems to not invest technology deliberately, this phenomenon might do something to change that situation. The app's author has just recently met the Vice Prime Minister privately, which is something that not everyone in my country can achieve
Sephie Wrote:I can expect a lot of spite came from indie devs. Imagine living on the dollar, scrounging to keep afloat, working hard making games, hoping to break out someday, then someone makes a game like Flappy Bird and gets all the money and fame..
then they should get a clue ? i mean literally all the games that have ever went viral were games that are simple to play... Temple run, Candy Crush, Angry birds... even Draw Something. its not a surprise that Flappy bird made it big, given the history of mobile games that have went viral before.
When a company like Nintendo is involved and in the popularity of such a game that everyone likes, they're not going to be willing to tarnish their name in the public's eye and so they made Dong Nguyen take down the game due to legal issues but make it look like he took it down out of his own free will. Just because he said no legal issues doesn't mean he didn't receive them, he may have except this was kept super private so both parties don't lose face.
Quote:"While we usually do not comment on the rumors and speculations, we have already denied the speculation," a Nintendo spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
At least according to the article, it wasn't a legal issue. I'm not too sure how much I buy it considering how crazy their legal team is with everything. (SEE Evo 2013 and YouTube content fiasco.)
Well him announcing the removal has caused even more people to download it.
People can still get the game through the internet, just not in the app store anymore.
The adds in the game still work.
I believe only did this to make even more money.
Which is obviously working.
DeanNim Wrote:then they should get a clue ? i mean literally all the games that have ever went viral were games that are simple to play... Temple run, Candy Crush, Angry birds... even Draw Something. its not a surprise that Flappy bird made it big, given the history of mobile games that have went viral before.
There is no way anyone can ever predict the next mobile game going viral. The mobile gaming market is so volatile and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of devs have tried to replicate the success of Angry Birds or Flappy with no success.
This guy was absolutely lucky, with the planets and stars aligning, to have a world phenomenon spawn from a days worth of programming using crude sprites and Mario assets with no marketing or attempt at breaking out whatsoever.
One can be envious or jealous of that kind of success. Maybe even spiteful.
I cannot believe it's something other than these two options:
1) Legal issues.
2) Enormous marketing stunt, which will continue when he brings the game back up again in a week or something.
It just absolutely doesn't make sense to shut down a game 'because people mail me'. I also read somewhere that he didn't look on internet for days/weeks because of all the hatemail/threats/whatever he got. If that's the case, he could've just left the game online and still not check all those mails.
Quote:It's just a game. Take care of yourself first. I don't make game to ruin people lives.
This man has ethics. He doesn't care about the money. He doesn't want the money if it's gotten by providing a game that is so addictive and/or frustrating that it ruins people's lives. He grossly overestimated the self-control of gamers.
With that weight on his conscience he saw fit to remove the game.
I commend him on his morality and I wish more game devs would stand up in the name of ethics.
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