The wild rise and fall of Flappy Bird | Version History

Quick Overview

Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen suddenly pulled the globally popular mobile game Flappy Bird from app stores on February 9, 2014, just 22 hours after announcing his decision via Twitter because he "cannot take this anymore" due to the intense negativity, death threats, and the game being played for hours contrary to his original vision of a quick, one-handed game.

Key Points: Flappy Bird, created by Dong Nguyen in a few evenings, was modeled after Angry Birds' repeatability and the paddle ball game, aiming to be simple enough to play one-handed on a train. The game was not an immediate success, ranking only 80th in the free iOS games section by the end of 2013 but exploded to number one by January 17, 2014, driven by players tweeting their shared rage and frustration. The Verge reported the game was making $50,000 a day in ad revenue, which complicated public perception, especially after Kotaku published a piece with the headline "Flappy Bird is making $50,000 a day off ripped art." Dong Nguyen received death threats and racist comments as the game's popularity grew, leading him to plead with users to play less, stating it was not designed for hours-long sessions. On February 8, 2014, Dong Nguyen announced the game's removal in 22 hours, later clarifying it was not due to legal issues, and the game disappeared from app stores on February 9, 2014, despite gaining 10 million more downloads in that final 22-hour window. The game's removal created an immediate market where phones with Flappy Bird pre-installed sold for thousands of dollars on eBay, and the app store was instantly flooded with clones like Flying Bird, Fly Birdie, and Tiny Flying Drizzy, none of which achieved the same success. Nguyen later released Swing Copters in August 2014, tweeting it was a game he believed "people will feel happy to play hopefully," but it did not replicate Flappy Bird's phenomenon.

Context: The podcast episode of Version History discusses the meteoric and abrupt rise and fall of the mobile game Flappy Bird, created by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen in May 2013. The discussion features hosts David Pierce and guests Jake Astronakis and Stephen Toillo from Game File, who recount their initial experiences playing the notoriously difficult game and analyze the cultural impact and the unique circumstances surrounding its sudden removal from the app stores.