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Flappy Bird creator, Dong Nguyen, taking down game; "I can't take this anymore"
- athesyn 13y agoSome context would be nice. I have no idea who this guy is (or Flappy Bird) and why we should care.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- a-nom-a-ly 13y agoThis behavior is disgusting in ways I cannot begin to describe. You didn't even attempt to do anything helpful, and probably didn't even read the post you responded to. To others: don't waste your time clicking on this link, it's just an obfuscated link to lmgtfy.com
- jedanbik 13y agoI'd call it lazy or boorish. Disgusting is not the right word. Unhelpful, yes. Disgusting, no.
- SungDewey 13y agoGet over yourself. The commenter should have just googled it if they wanted context. You are disgusting.
- jeorgun 13y agoI'm noticing a trend recently of accounts created seemingly for the sole purpose of insulting a specific post / comment, and it's beginning to seriously irritate me. Does anyone know why this seems to be on the rise, and if there's anything that can be done to stop it? (if you're not actually such an account, then sorry for falsely accusing you, but my irritation at the trend in general still stands).
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoI don't think I've ever seen a post get downvoted so hard that it's actually invisible. Severely faded, yes.
- jdhendrickson 13y agoFlappy Bird is a silly game in which you tap on the screen of your touch device to nagivate a (duck?) through a series of narrow paths delineated by tubes sprouting from the sky and ground. In the tradition of older 8 bit video games it's extremely unforgiving one mistake and you have to start over. It's apparently been a big hit. In regard to who the guy is, he is the developer of that silly game which he did for fun part time, it's blown up and he is tired of people harassing him. As to why people should care? I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
- k__ 13y agoI don't get it. Why did he get harassed? Because he made money?
- InclinedPlane 13y agoEvery creator gets harassed these days, to varying degrees. You can create the most sublime and enthralling game in history and people will still complain about it. It's even worse if you create a simple game that is frustratingly difficult. The culture of entitlement and harassment is one of the worst aspects of the internet today.
- sp332 13y agoHe got harassed because the game looks like it didn't take much work, and it's more popular than people think it deserves to be.
- dhughes 13y agoDamn this is my dream, make a simple app with little effort, make millions.
- anigbrowl 13y agoLots of people saying it's symptomatic of everything that's wrong with casual gaming, ad-supported gaming, and general timewasting. I have the impression the author saw it as a marker on the path to making more high quality games, and is horrified by the idea of becoming the CEO of Flappy Bird Inc., much as the creators of novelty songs that become one-hit wonders end up being permanently associated with something stupid that was done for a joke and/or a quick buck. Also, I see a significant social stigma in Vietnam to exploiting 'that stupid game my kid is wasting all his time on.'
- muyuu 13y agoThis is a loose HTML5 clone http://uralozden.com/flappy/ http://uralozden.com/flappy/
- CSDude 13y agoYou fail so many times that it shows so much ads, I don't know how ad payment work, but it must be profitable. Does not make sense to shut down because of some haters.
- Jhsto 13y agoPolygon reported the game to make $50'000/day from those ads. The developer seems to have a mental breakdown and should probably go offline for a day or two.
- bbayer 13y agoIt looks like a joke. I couldn't find any meaningful explanation for it.
- max0563 13y agohttps://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432095426854912000 https://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432095426854912000 https://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432096186313355264 https://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432096186313355264 That should explain it.
- killnine 13y agoBecause Internet.
- UnfalseDesign 13y agoI understand that he is probably wanting to get away from all the press coverage but I'm pretty sure this is not the right way to go about it. This might actually have the opposite effect. I had no intention of downloading it but knowing it is about to be removed, I'm going to download it.
- pgrote 13y agoMe, too. I just downloaded. I hadn't played it until the HTML5 clone showed up here.
- akmx9 13y agoMaybe that's what he wants to happen?
- nirbhay 13y agoyea that may be the case too, although I would like to think otherwise :]
- laurent123456 13y agoNever attribute to malice...
- amark 13y agoHe's really a PR genius. When he restores Flappy Bird to the app store next week, after a week of the media writing about how it was taken down abruptly, It'll blow up even more.
- keithpeter 13y agoMy teenager students will be devastated by this. They really liked the game. We also had a good class discussion about adverts, the amount of money you can get from adverts, and the cost of living in Hanoi. The main thing is that they worked out that there is a human being who lives somewhere and who has a name sitting down at a computer and hacking away at this game so they can play it.
- contingencies 13y agoIncidentally, Hanoi is a really nice town, and unlike most neighbouring jurisdictions Vietnam doesn't tax imported food and wine products to oblivion. Internet there's a lot better than in neighbouring China or Laos, and they don't have a Cambodia/Sweden style history of randomly exfiltrating hackers without due legal process.
- mahyarm 13y agoHas any politically contentious hackers decided to live there who were not Vietnamese?
- contingencies 13y agoNot sure, but at least one very large scale, convicted drug smuggler from the glory days of California does, and they seem to leave him alone.
- MichaelTieso 13y agoHanoi is an enormous city. The internet has gotten worse in Vietnam. Bloggers are regularly arrested for having opinions. Starting sometime last year, Vietnam has put some heavy restrictions on the internet. Look up Decree 72. You are no longer allowed to share news stories. Having said that, Vietnam is still a beautiful country with delicious food.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoThe internet in Hanoi is still probably better than nearby Nanning. The Chinese are just really good in creating walls, even if they are firewalls.
- canbrianExp 13y agoThe owner is pretty vague about it on twitter, but I'm pretty sure they're taking it down due to how it effects their quality of life: https://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432095426854912000 https://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432095426854912000
- tantalor 13y agoSounds like he made a mistake and is paying for it now. If he really wanted a simple life, he should not have published a game under his own name.
- mahyarm 13y agoIt's a big pain in the ass to register an App Store account as a company vs as an individual. Especially if it's something as small and casual as this.
- tantalor 13y agoIt may be a pain, but the game is generating a lot of attention and money. The prudent choice would be to release the app under a company's name. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
- mahyarm 13y agoIt became popular after the fact. He wasn't expecting to become this popular by a long shot. By the time he was starting to get popular, it was too late.
- new_test 13y agoMaybe it's a PR tactic to get everyone who doesn't have it yet to download it?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- _pmf_ 13y agoDry your tears with the money, dude! Rake it in while you can!
- staticfish 13y agoMoney doesn't always dry tears, especially if he is going through a semi mental breakdown.
- qrybam 13y agoI feel for the guy. He made something a while ago, put on the market without much fanfare and then out of the blue his game suddenly shot to the top and raked in 50 million downloads. If you're not expecting it and you don't have the right people around you, all this publicity (a lot of which is quite negative, despite the game's popularity) can be pretty hard to take for some people. Remember Susan Boyle's breakdown post her win on Britain's Got Talent? Having said that, I've spent a couple of hours playing it since the first posts on HN showed up (yesterday) and got myself a top score of 50. I feel the appeal is in its simplicity. I hope the creator takes some time out and gets the support he needs.
- freyrs3 13y agoThis is actually quite common behavior. You see this a lot in any sort of craft where you get sudden and unexpected success, they end up resenting their creation or feel some disconnect between the effort they put in and the result.
- _delirium 13y agoYou also tend to get a whole different level of weird attacks when you hit that. When you suddenly go from mildly obscure musician or developer to unexpected-spotlight, a huge pile of people appear to tell you that your thing is shit and you should feel bad for making it, whereas when it's safely obscure you don't tend to get that a lot.
- Dylan16807 13y agoThey probably feel there's a disconnect between effort put in and resulting popularity because that's objectively true. And I understand feeling resentment when faced with a shining, blinking example of how unfair such things are and how hard it is to get popular even with something very good. Note: this is a comment about the general case
- pstack 13y agoSorry, but $50k/day compensates completely for any potential resentment. Especially coming from the real world, where stalkers and people showing up at your door and getting hold of your phone number because of a service or product you provided that drew a few nutjobs rarely comes with any compensation. He should make all the money he can, laugh off the haters (whatever haters there are - I have only heard people talking either about how much they like the game, how frustrating the game is, or how nuts it is that it is making so much money for what it is). He could ride it out for a few weeks (or months, if he's lucky) and retire. Especially in his part of the world. This artsy-fartsy turtle-head-back-in-shell thing is pretty crazy.
- adamnemecek 13y agoIf this is a marketing trick, that's some next level shit. But I'm not suggesting that it is.
- NigelTufnel 13y agoHe seems to be a normal guy, not a PR genius. But, yeah, "The game with 50,000,000 downloads will be taken off the app stores in the next 22 hours" is brilliant.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y agoIt's the whole "next 22 hours" that's the kicker, he's explicitly warning his market that it will be an exclusive item.
- dasil003 13y agoWell at least there'd be a next level to something then.
- jchung 13y agoWow. Did you just... You DID.
- calroc 13y ago"So much to do at Cartmanlaaaand.. But you can't come! eXpecially Stan and Kyle!"
- manmal 13y agoThis very recent tweet from Dong seems to explain his motivation: https://twitter.com/dongatory/statuses/432096186313355264 https://twitter.com/dongatory/statuses/432096186313355264 other guy: "No problem, but you hate the success of Flappy Bird?" Dong: "Not because of them but because how people use my game. They are overusing it."
- Aqueous 13y agoAnd in about a month or two Flappy Bird fever will wear off and folks will move onto something else. Don't turn down millions of dollars because people are doing what people do! Someone remind him of all the folks who have downloaded his game and stopped playing nearly immediately...,
- SurfScore 13y agoI think it's about more than money for this guy
- Houshalter 13y agoI respect his morals but the people over using the game are just going to move on to some other game and get addicted to it. If he feels bad about profiting from the game, he should donate it to a charity. That amount of money can do a lot of good.
- jonny_eh 13y agoAnd if a drug dealer decides to stop selling meth, you'd discourage him since addicts can just buy it down the block? Note: I'm not saying Flappy Bird is like meth, but just pointing out your logic.
- derefr 13y agoIf meth were a liquid market with dealers lining up on every single street corner in the city to sell (and probably stocking it in grocery and convenience stores besides), then yeah, his stopping wouldn't really change the situation. His monetary loss from stopping sales will far outweigh whatever infinitesimal decrease there will be in the convenience of finding an addictive game on the iTunes app store.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoThis never works out the way the vanishers expect it to. The media won't let it.
- kayoone 13y agoI dont think its a PR tactic or anything. They guy just doesnt care for money or popularity it seems, for whatever reason. Just let him be and move on internet...
- UnfalseDesign 13y agoThis is a great opportunity for someone to make a (good) clone of this game and clean up!
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoBut this game's concept has been around since forever already, also on other app store titles, so... idk.
- UnfalseDesign 13y agoGood point. I guess, on a very ground level view, all game concepts have more or less been around for years. It would be an interesting study of why this one went so big when so many others didn't. Also, I was thinking of more of a blatant rip off. I'd imagine those rip offs that are already out there are going to see a spike in downloads in the next couple days when people go to find this game and it isn't there.
- yofx 13y agoReally sucker ? Just because he is not from America so you are suggesting to make clone ? How creative of you ? I am reading many comments here and some people really need to get a life. So he became famous, his game appeared in top charts doesn't mean you should start to hate him. If you are so genius why you don't you create something yourself ? something novel ? You also have all opportunity , (including whatever tricks some are saying), time. Let people decide what they like and not. Again, stop the hatred.
- ChrisAntaki 13y agoWell, this is great news for anyone who's trying to clone the game.
- spyder 13y agoThere are already clones: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=flappy https://play.google.com/store/search?q=flappy
- buckyball 13y agothat's probably the thing. Just think about what it is like to suddenly find yourself as a public known non-government guy in a socialist, underdeveloped country obviously owning a million bucks. D'oh. I bet he's been stalked a lot last days.
- cliveowen 13y agoIt's hard to imagine a reason to even think about taking it down and seeing its poor command of the language it looks like we'll never know. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because he's a lone developer, too much to handle for one guy.
- kjhughes 13y agoHe's averaging $50K per day from in-app ads according to an interview with The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5383708/flappy-bird-revenue-50-k-per-day-dong-nguyen-interview http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5383708/flappy-bird-revenue...
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoHe can let me take the heat for him. $40k a day is all I charge.
- jusben1369 13y agoAND he's in Vietnam. Huge sum of money.
- thelogos 13y ago>AND he's in Vietnam. Huge sum of money. It's a huge sum of money anywhere. But in Vietnam, you can hole yourself up in a nice hotel in the center of the city, eat out everyday and live lavishly for less than $2k a month.
- dcpdx 13y agoIf he really couldn't take it anymore, and really wanted out of the game, he would have taken it down without any fanfare and gone off the grid completely. By announcing it, though, he's drawing an incredible amount of attention to the game which leads me to believe this was the intended effect. Heck, it made me download it as I've never played it before. Genius move.
- kin 13y agoIf this is because of harassment then I feel really bad for him. The game may be super simple and silly but it shouldn't be ridiculed by those who are jealous of its luck and success. My personal score is 102 and I appreciate the game for what it is.
- joshvm 13y agoThere was a Polygon article on HN recently about how the audience has no idea what it wants. It used Flappy Bird as the example, mentioning how it was an overnight success, but repeatedly slammed it: "Not only is the visual language of Flappy Bird almost entirely re-appropriated from early NES games, but it seems to be engineered and designed by someone still learning how to create games. There are frequent slowdowns and animation glitches in the Android version but, more importantly, Flappy Bird has absolutely no sense of what indie game developers call "feel." The hitboxes are ridiculously large, which is the source of much of the game’s difficulty. The flapping mechanic, while serviceable, is entirely ordinary. It looks and feels like a game design student's first project in their intro to programming class." In other words: "Well, this product is a turd, but it look how many idiots are buying it!" If that was your pet project, how would you feel? Imagine if every news article covering your game did so by giving you backhand compliments. It would crush you very, very quickly.
- Wohui 13y agoGood point, I read that article before trying the game thus never realised how insulting the author was. And he's a drama queen about the hitbox. The game is smooth on my 1½ years old S3 (FWIW).
- oliwary 13y agoAgreed. I think many people (myself included, probably) aren't equipped to deal with constant streams of criticism and abuse. It's a shame the internet had to react this way. The guy seems really humble and deserving of the success. But I think he chose happiness over the money, and I think that speaks of great integrity.
- 13y ago
- Jhsto 13y agoAs a side note, Dong has doubled his Twitter followers in one hour from 7000 to what now is nearly 16000. Whatever was his real intentions, he is receiving media attention which will most likely last even after he pulls out the game. You could speculate that he is trying to make a name for himself, so that the upcoming games would make him a stable income. As an indie developer he should know the fact that Flappy Bird won't last long - for example, Rovio is making over half of its income from other physical brand items. I'm not saying you will see Flappy Bird soda next year, but the games Dong releases later will most likely gain more attention thanks to Flappy Bird and Twitter is a way to make sure that the fans will notice it.
- cfinke 13y agoYou could speculate that he is trying to make a name for himself, so that the upcoming games would make him a stable income. Are you speculating that, or are you suggesting that others should speculate that?
- WoodenChair 13y agoIt's an expression, bro. Calm down.
- sarreph 13y agoIt really bothers me just how heatedly pernickety some users are. WoodenChair, your request for calm is greatly appreciated.
- Jhsto 13y agoI'm sorry if that's a grammar mistake. I was trying bring my own idea out without saying that Dong would actually do it for PR. So yes, that's me speculating.
- jonny_eh 13y agoHN has quite an interesting population of bots that comment. You might think they're human, but they're super pedantic, much more than any human you would meet in real life.
- WWKong 13y agoI wonder if he thinks all the "negative" reviews are serious feedback. He is from a different culture and humor almost never translates well.
- Ryel 13y agoThere are lessons to be learned from this phenomenon in all fields (marketing, game dev, PR, etc...) One thing I can empathize, and suspect is the root of this, is that as a young developer I'm sure he's scared out of his mind of legal repercussions. It's not easy scraping pennies one day, and then the next day checking your bank account and seeing money in there that you feel you didnt work for. It doesnt feel legal. At the very least, I'm sure that weighs heavy on his mind.
- megablast 13y agoSee, it is not like that. Even if he was selling the game he would have to wait for at least a month for Apple to pay. And since this is advertising, it can take a lot longer. Also, he can have problems getting the money into Vietnam or wherever he is. He may get a large US cheque, which will be a huge pain to cash.
- ssully 13y agoI hope he reverts on this decision and keeps the game up. I am not a fan of it, but I can appreciate his success.
- frade33 13y agoHow about someone acq-hired him? :)
- parasitius 13y agoTried to get past the first set of pipes about 20 times. I managed it once. Giving up
- sillysaurus2 13y agoThis kind of helped me relate to why he's taking it down: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD-nzHy2DdU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD-nzHy2DdU I know it's a joke, but on the other hand, it's only funny because a lot of people identify with the sentiment.
- ultramancool 13y agoSo uhhh, now that he's out of the game can I make yet another SFCave clone and start making $50k/day then?
- ccoggins 13y agoGood ole' sfcave. I've been playing that game since the palm pilot days. I remember upgrading my to a newer palm pilot and finding out that the game wasn't actually running full speed on my old greyscale palm. The android version is still fun.
- ultramancool 13y agoHah, yeah, I'm not sure if the game was timed properly or if it just ran as fast as your device could draw it. Fucking loved that game. Android port is pretty good, but just not the same for some reason. Not as fast perhaps. Flappy Bird made me glad to see someone could do something nice with its formula still.
- tedajax 13y agoIt's funny because I made an SFCave clone for the Xbox Indie marketplace back in 2009 when it looked like that store might not be totally awful. My girlfriend was playing Flappy Bird and I told her that it makes $50,000 a day and she said "Didn't you make a game like this already?" Ah if only I had felt compelled to remake it for iPhones.
- anon4 13y agoSFCave is all mined out. The next big thing is obviously Gorillas.
- unethical_ban 13y agoTwitter is such a shit platform to convey ideas and motivations.
- MartinCron 13y agoYou know, that idea you just expressed fits nicely into 140 characters.
- unethical_ban 13y agoI should claim that that was my point, and that I was trying to be satirical. However, the truth is that for discussing motivations and explaining things, such as Flappy Bird's demise, it really is not the ideal way to convey a message. Nuance and detail are gone on Twitter... and to your point, I was initially downvoted for my comment, presumably because I didn't give sufficient contribution to the converstaion.
- MartinCron 13y agoI totally agree with you. I just couldn't resist the irony. Twitter seems best for short-form humor and food-truck locating.
- dustyreagan 13y agoAccidental product success, followed by accidental PR success. Half of HN would kill for this kind of luck, and this poor guy doesn't want it... Which makes it even more interesting!
- ballstothewalls 13y agowhat are the chances that his twitter account was hacked?
- mrbill 13y agoTaking down the game tomorrow isn't going to stop the flow of ad income from already-installed copies.. plus, generates a rush of people downloading "before it's gone". Genius.
- cj 13y agoAny chance this is a PR stunt?
- edandersen 13y agoIf he hates the game so much, why did he release version 1.2 on the 7th Feb (two days ago!) with a new title screen, new UI, "new birds" and new backgrounds?
- stefan_kendall 13y agoHe released 1.2 at least 7 days ago, given app review times.
- Tzunamitom 13y agoPlease give me peace... I’ve emailed Nguyen to find out more and will update this post if I hear back. Classic.
- fnayr 13y agoPURE CONJECTURE: I'm an app developer and have been approached about doing deals to make it to the top where they would take a share of the revenue (and/or) charge an upfront fee. So he could be taking it down because he doesn't want to keep paying 10-50% of his profits to some other company, when he realizes he can probably get another app to the top with his existing fame and userbase. Would make a lot more sense than his claimed reasons.
- fnayr 13y agoIt also would help explain the app's jump out of nowhere 6 months after release.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jmaha 13y agoClones in 3...2...1...
- mabhatter 13y agoI was explaining to my kids he other day this great silly game and they already knew what it was. The first thing they said was people play that all the time at school. The top reviews are "tounge in cheek" to the addictiveness of the game.
- chenster 13y agoNow even more people are going to rush to the App store and download the game today before the app is taken down.. assuming that would really happen.
- Varcht 13y agoMaybe he's more brilliant than we've given him credit for. Possible scenario is that he's received take downs for prior art, name infringement or whatever. Instead of fighting it and waiting for Apple and Google to do it he says he's taking it down, driving popularity while doubling or tripling his ad impressions for a couple days
- FlappyBrd 13y agohttp://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-flappy-bird http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-flappy-bird sign the petition to save Flappy Bird
- Noxchi 13y agoEverybody as an internal thermometer on how comfortable they are with success. If you're too low ("I know I can do better than this!"), you work until you reach your temperature. If you're too high, you self sabotage yourself until you are back to your level. Case in point, removing your multi million dollar game from circulation.
- stasy 13y agoThere are at least 30 million users on Flappy Bird (users that have played at least once and have a gamecenter account.
- uptown 13y agoThe thing is - if he didn't care about the money, couldn't he just release an update without the ads?
- piracyde25 13y agoI don't think money is his problem. He got an Apple product to code his app. That costs him something.
- piracyde25 13y agoI don't think money is his problem. He got an Apple product to code his app. That costs him something.
- fmavituna 13y agoWhere is this $50K per day coming from? If he has given this information to public, what was he expecting? Especially living in a country where people makes $150 per month.
- thelogos 13y agoThis guy lives in Vietnam? I would be seriously worried about my own safety if I were him. Coming out and doing that interview was a bad idea. Believe me, you don't want to be known as a rich person in a country like Vietnam. People will jump in front of your moped just to extort some money from you. Everyone, including the police are crooked. In fact, I would be more worried about the police arresting the guy under some false pretense to extort some pocket money.