
Flappy Bird creator, Dong Nguyen, taking down game; "I can't take this anymore" - adriancooney
https://twitter.com/dongatory/status/432227971173068800
======
qrybam
I 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
This 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.

~~~
pstack
Sorry, 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.

~~~
jtheory
Who the $#%^ wants to "retire" when they're not even 30 years old? What does
that even mean? Never create anything again, just potter around and waste the
rest of your life away until you die, because of a meaningless stroke of luck
when you were younger?

What I suspect you're not getting is that $50K/day is NOT 350x more rewarding-
feeling than $1K a week. He can't just sit around and bask in some wonderful
"I win" feeling, laughing off the haters.

There's an important point where you start making the money you need, then
another where you start making the money you want (to reduce your future risk,
to take reasonable good care of your parents as they age, etc.).

But the number going up beyond that doesn't give you anything good; it just
makes you more of a target, separates you from everyone you interact with,
gives you a heavier responsibility, makes it _harder_ for you to just live the
modest, comfortable life you were hoping for.

Money is not a goal in itself; or rather, only for the profoundly short-
sighted. It's an enabler. If it's making him a target, and alienating him...
why should he want that?

\-- Edited: somehow I had the idea he was a teenager; corrected that.

------
Jhsto
As 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
_You 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
It's an expression, bro. Calm down.

~~~
sarreph
It really bothers me just how heatedly pernickety some users are.

 _WoodenChair_ , your request for calm is greatly appreciated.

------
keithpeter
My 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.

~~~
sgustard
Cost of living in Hanoi is so high because of strict building codes. They have
these towers, you see, and they constantly have to move them a floor at a time
across the city, and the larger floors have to sit below the smaller floors,
with a severely constrained workforce. It's a logistics nightmare.

~~~
tinco
They should hire someone to devise a strategy so they can move the floors more
optimally.

~~~
thaumasiotes
If someone were able to do that, they could leverage it into a very high-up
position somewhere. Three-post towers of hanoi is an easy problem. Four-post
is still unsolved.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Have we turned against fun facts?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reve%27s_puzzle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reve%27s_puzzle)

------
manmal
This 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
And 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...,

~~~
pikachu_is_cool
This might come as a shocker to many people on HN, but many people do not like
money.

~~~
Aqueous
It's not noble to waste opportunity like that. If he doesn't like money, he
should take the money then give it away. A lot of poor people would kill to
have that money to feed themselves and their families, or send their kid to
school - if he feels so inclined he should take it and give it to them. If
not, he's wasting a huge opportunity to either be very rich or very charitable
out of some poorly thought-through righteousness.

~~~
awakeasleep
So you advocate doing things you find morally objectionable while telling
yourself that it is the right thing to do because you can give the money away
afterwards? That sounds insane to me.

~~~
Aqueous
I think it's morally objectionable to waste a rare opportunity when one could
just as easily channel that opportunity towards the benefits of others.

~~~
Varcht
This really does not compute for me, so it's bad to stop ruining people's
lives if in ruining their lives you could help other people's lives? What if
the people addicted and raging over Flappy Bird are the same ones that you
think should be helped?

~~~
derefr
You're conflating two acts: he has produced a game, and being addicted _to
games_ ruins some people's lives. But if he withdraws his game, their lives
don't suddenly get un-ruined. They just switch to some other game.

Basically, you're suggesting that an equilibrium of (1 person-hour stolen by
addiction : 1 person-hour of ad impressions given to charity) should be
replaced with (1 person-hour stolen by addiction [just to some other game] : 0
person-hours of ad impressions given to charity). Note that there is no "0
person-hours stolen by addiction" option.

------
kjhughes
He'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...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5383708/flappy-bird-
revenue-50-k-per-day-dong-nguyen-interview)

~~~
jusben1369
AND he's in Vietnam. Huge sum of money.

~~~
thelogos
>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.

------
UnfalseDesign
I 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.

~~~
amark
He'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.

~~~
adventured
When - if - he removes it from the app store, Clumsy Bird [insert clone here]
will take over his sales momentum, and Flappy Bird will never be heard from
again.

~~~
jerogarcia
indeed , clumsy birds is coming close.

------
sillysaurus2
This 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
So uhhh, now that he's out of the game can I make yet another SFCave clone and
start making $50k/day then?

~~~
ccoggins
Good 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
Hah, 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.

------
adamnemecek
If this is a marketing trick, that's some next level shit. But I'm not
suggesting that it is.

~~~
dasil003
Well at least there'd be a next level to _something_ then.

~~~
jchung
Wow. Did you just... You DID.

------
fnayr
PURE 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
It also would help explain the app's jump out of nowhere 6 months after
release.

------
kin
If 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
There 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.

~~~
derefr
That's bad journalism, of course. If people are buying something in droves,
and classical analysis suggests that that should be impossible, then there's
something wrong with the analysis. A proper article would start with what we
know -- "people love this game" \-- and then try to figure out _why._

You see the same backwards approach to journalism everywhere there's a scale
in how much work things take to produce. Critics appreciate things with a
complex process behind them. People, meanwhile, value mostly nostalgia and
super-stimuli.

The wine most popular in blind taste-tests of people who haven't developed a
"palate" for wine, is basically equivalent to grape juice with some vodka
dumped into it. This isn't a bad thing! But critics hate it, because there's
nothing to talk about there. It's grapey, and it's alcoholic, and that's all
people really want. Until, that is, they're immersed into the whole culture of
oaky this and tannins that, and start thinking about what went into the wine
instead of just whether they want to drink a lot of it.

And because of this, critics generally don't serve the people. People want to
find the _best-tasting_ grapey alcohol. Critics, meanwhile, just want to talk
about how long something aged in a barrel, and don't even have _words_ to
differentiate grapey alcohols.

~~~
pstack
That isn't how Polygon works. They and their writers absolutely despise their
readers and gamers, in general.

------
canbrianExp
The 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
Sounds 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
It'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
It 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
It 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.

------
Ryel
There 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
See, 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.

------
CSDude
You 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
Polygon 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.

------
cliveowen
It'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.

------
dustyreagan
Accidental 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!

------
kayoone
I 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...

------
new_test
Maybe it's a PR tactic to get everyone who doesn't have it yet to download it?

------
Varcht
Maybe 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

------
dcpdx
If 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.

------
buckyball
that'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.

------
UnfalseDesign
This is a great opportunity for someone to make a (good) clone of this game
and clean up!

~~~
Cthulhu_
But this game's concept has been around since forever already, also on other
app store titles, so... idk.

~~~
UnfalseDesign
Good 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.

------
mrbill
Taking 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.

------
unethical_ban
Twitter is such a shit platform to convey ideas and motivations.

~~~
MartinCron
You know, that idea you just expressed fits nicely into 140 characters.

~~~
unethical_ban
I 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
I totally agree with you. I just couldn't resist the irony.

Twitter seems best for short-form humor and food-truck locating.

------
thelogos
This 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.

------
_pmf_
Dry your tears with the money, dude! Rake it in while you can!

~~~
staticfish
Money doesn't always dry tears, especially if he is going through a semi
mental breakdown.

------
WWKong
I wonder if he thinks all the "negative" reviews are serious feedback. He is
from a different culture and humor almost never translates well.

------
ssully
I hope he reverts on this decision and keeps the game up. I am not a fan of
it, but I can appreciate his success.

------
Noxchi
Everybody 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.

------
athesyn
Some context would be nice. I have no idea who this guy is (or Flappy Bird)
and why we should care.

~~~
jdhendrickson
Flappy 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__
I don't get it.

Why did he get harassed?

Because he made money?

~~~
sp332
He 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
Damn this is my dream, make a simple app with little effort, make millions.

------
mabhatter
I 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.

------
ChrisAntaki
Well, this is great news for anyone who's trying to clone the game.

~~~
spyder
There are already clones:
[https://play.google.com/store/search?q=flappy](https://play.google.com/store/search?q=flappy)

------
FlappyBrd
[http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-flappy-
bird](http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-flappy-bird) sign the petition
to save Flappy Bird

------
fmavituna
Where 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.

------
edandersen
If 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
He released 1.2 at least 7 days ago, given app review times.

------
ballstothewalls
what are the chances that his twitter account was hacked?

------
chenster
Now 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.

------
stasy
There are at least 30 million users on Flappy Bird (users that have played at
least once and have a gamecenter account.

------
uptown
The thing is - if he didn't care about the money, couldn't he just release an
update without the ads?

------
piracyde25
I don't think money is his problem. He got an Apple product to code his app.
That costs him something.

------
waterlesscloud
This never works out the way the vanishers expect it to. The media won't let
it.

------
bbayer
It looks like a joke. I couldn't find any meaningful explanation for it.

~~~
max0563
[https://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.

------
frade33
How about someone acq-hired him? :)

------
cj
Any chance this is a PR stunt?

------
jmaha
Clones in 3...2...1...

------
killnine
Because Internet.

