Flappy Bird took the world by storm seemingly overnight, as mobile gamers flocked to all three mobile app stores to download the difficult title. There’s plenty of controversy surrounding the title, including the fact that creator Dong Nguyen makes around $50k a day from advertising revenue. While that make seem like a success to some, apparently all the unwanted attention from the success of the game forced Nguyen to remove the title from all app stores yesterday. Prior to the removal, Nguyen tweeted:
I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore.
Because of his success Nguyen was the focus of unwanted media attention, as well as much hate on Twitter and across the internet. Some people speculated that Nintendo had a problem with the graphics of the game, as the pipes featured in Flappy Bird look suspiciously similar to those a certain fat plumber descends. Many believed that Nguyen may have been threatened by legal action from the Kyoto-based company. Nintendo has refuted these accusations to Wall Street Journal however, as a spokesperson for Nintendo stated this:
While we usually do not comment on the rumors and speculations, we have already denied the speculation.
Apparently the success of Flappy Bird and the massive hate machine that is the internet really are the only reasons for Nguyen’s removal of the app from all app stores.
