
Why Indie Developers Go Insane - jaimebuelta
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-indie-developers-go-insane.html
======
antirez
Whatever is the reality about Flappy Bird, it is inconceivable for me that at
the same time an IT world that is incredibly capitalist, interested in big
earnings, VC moneys, and where success is measured in rounds and exits, at the
same time, can't accept that: 1) A simple game can earn 50k and is deserved,
if people like the game. 2) That there is no need to search at any cost some
hidden reason to remove the game. 3) That one does not need to get insane
and/or break to go away from money.

~~~
darkmighty
I don't think he "went insane". He received threats. He lives in a poor
country (and probably violent) and likely doesn't want to raise flags as the
guy earning 50k a day.

This is just first world people forgetting there are violent and politically
delicate countries elsewhere, I guess.

~~~
_pmf_
> This is just first world people forgetting there are violent and politically
> delicate countries elsewhere, I guess.

Ahem:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

~~~
scott_karana
Homicide rate might not correlate to robbery, harrassment, or extortion. Not
to mention the political issue of richness in a nominally Communist nation.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Homicide would definitely seem to correlate with robbery and extortion,
robbery by accident and extortion for the basic reason that otherwise it would
be quite hard to extort as nobody would take you seriously.

I suspect that the issue of richness might be a social consideration, but they
have a progressive tax code that goes up to 35% for those making more than ~
$45,000 per year and there do not appear to be any legal restrictions on
maximum income.

Oh, and they have been nominally socialist since the late 80's when they got
rid of the whole planned economy thing.

edit - I just thought, Vietnam strikes me as a particularly bad place to try
and run an extortion racket. Whatever you try and threaten them with had
better be bloody scary otherwise you run a serious risk of being laughed at by
an old bloke with lots of tunneling experience.

------
patio11
Read this, despite the title. It describes truths about public creation
generally, and should be of _particular_ interest to HNers who dream of going
into indie game development.

~~~
nForce
I don't think this article is anywhere near accurate of the current situation.
The author doesn't know the creator of Happy Birds personally, and makes a lot
of presumptions whilst perhaps projecting a lot of his own issues onto him.

I'm more inclined to think the creator took the game down to save himself
being sued to oblivion and keep whatever money he currently has.

~~~
rickyc091
He did an interview with Forbes and clearly stated that he was not being sued.
If he was, we know about it since I'm sure the thousands of other clones would
be sued and the company suing them would want some publicity.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/lananhnguyen/2014/02/11/exclusiv...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/lananhnguyen/2014/02/11/exclusive-
flappy-bird-creator-dong-nguyen-says-app-gone-forever-because-it-was-an-
addictive-product/)

~~~
nForce
I never said he was currently being sued. Also many of the clones probably
don't make the money the original does.

I personally believe he's probably some poor indie developer who's practically
won the lottery and realizes he could loose it all by all the attention he's
received. Removing the app, and disappearing until everything settles down,
(whilst still making residual revenue from all the current installs), is the
best way for him to mitigate his growing risk of being sued, which is probably
scary for him and out of his depth, being a solo indie developer from Vietnam.

Of course he could just be a crazy irrational indie developer as the article
assumes, among a number of other explanations which we will probably never
know the truth :)

------
krmmalik
I'm not a developer and I've never put something together like this, however,
having spent some time in the far east in my teen years and early twenties I
know what it can be like when you become 'famous' or rich overnight. You can
get a lot of unwanted attention, that may even put your family in actual
threat of harm and danger. That is not a nice feeling and makes it very hard
to sleep at night and even think during the day.

I really feel for this guy. I don't know what it's like in Vietnam, but given
it's part of the far east, I wouldn't be surprised if he's had death threats
and similar. Fame and riches don't necessarily lead to a happier life in these
places, you need power along with it too.

That said, it's entirely possible that it has nothing to do with the any
threat of actual harm and danger from external forces but just the barrage of
envy, criticism and perhaps unwarranted attention. That's a problem that can
be fixed.

If there are any indie developers out there that ever find them in such a bind
or position, I'm making this plain and simple offer to you all. Please feel
free to reach out to me. I'll help you work through it. I've helped plenty
others in similar situations, and ultimately it's all about just 'getting out
of your own shell' for want of a better phrase - and I can help you do that.

Hope that helps if anyone is reading this. Contact details in my profile.

~~~
badman_ting
Seemed to me like he was reacting to the threats he got _online_ , not really
anything to do where he lives. Strange that HNers seem to keep focusing on
that.

------
prawks
For anyone who this article interested, I highly recommend watching Indie
Game: The Movie. To say the least, it was eye-opening for me, as someone who
hasn't put much creative work in the public space in any very visible way.

It's incredibly humanizing to see these people who built indie games that I
enjoy greatly go through the amount of stress that they do, all over pieces of
software that most people rarely blink an eye at.

It's also completely understanding when people like Phil Fish or Don Nguyen
quit the industry. It takes a certain mindset, and I don't think people who
start making games for the fun of expressing themselves fully realize it at
first.

~~~
BlackDeath3
I love that movie, and will stick up for Phil Fish any time. It's really easy
for nobodies to sit in obscurity and shit on the guy for doing some of the
things he did, but I love him for it. I love that somebody in his position had
the guts to tell jackasses to fuck off.

------
Arjuna
Jeff is spot on in his blog post.

To make an analogy, Dong Nguyen essentially tapped into the modern-day
equivalent of _Pac-Man Fever_. In the 80s, it swept the world, to the tune of
billions of dollars. It was the highest-grossing arcade game ever produced.
People simply loved the game, and they couldn't get enough of clearing boards
of dots, power-pellets and ghosts.

Most people probably knew nothing about who made the game, with the small
exception of the corporate names on the game (e.g., Namco/Midway). Certainly,
I suspect only the hardcore few would be able to name the programmer of Pac-
Man, Shigeo Funaki. And I suspect that no one blinked their eyes in disdain
when they saw the news reports of Pac-Man's financial success.

In a similar way, Flappy Bird took very simple game-play, and combined it with
a simple challenge. This is, of course, not the first game to do this, but it
took off so successfully that I suspect that a very high percentage of gamers
have it installed, and even some non-gamers could likely brand-identify the
game, or have at least heard of it. The power of the Internet has made
Nguyen's name known, and quite sadly in some circles, despised for his
financial success.

No one bemoaned Pac-Man's programmer, or Namco/Midway's success, but fast-
forward from the 80s to today, and you get gems like this article [1] and its
intellectual lamenting with, _" [...] I begrudge a society that would turn it
into a phenomenon."_

I suspect that the author would have said the same about Pac-Man.

Casual games like Flappy Bird do not prevent someone from playing, say, EVE
Online, to their heart's content. And, what if you just happen to like _both_
types of games? I guess you are a real outcast at that point; a non-
intellectual. To put it another way, just because you intellectually eschew
casual games and choose instead to rock, say, Steel Battalion with a full-on
controller [2] doesn't mean that you are necessarily leading the upliftment of
society.

Fortunately, there is a game in the world for every gamer.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/02/03/flappy-
bir...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/02/03/flappy-bird-review-
winged-fury)

[2]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Steel_Ba...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Steel_Battalion_controllers.jpg)

------
philbarr
This might be niave of me, but couldn't he just accept his $50,000 a day and
simply not read the hate he was getting? It's not like he _has_ to go on the
computer every day - he could just do something else for a couple of weeks (at
the most) until it all dies down and be $mucho better off.

I spent longer than the three days he's supposed to have spent on my latest
game[1] and I would _love_ a response like he's got.

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyappe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyapped.calculate)

~~~
lewispollard
From what I've heard the Vietnamese media went crazy trying to contact him,
organise meetings, put his family into the media spotlight. Vietnam's still a
communist state, don't forget - making this kind of money puts unwanted
attention on him from state and from organised criminals in the area. I bet
his family didn't want that kind of attention.

~~~
sergiotapia
I'm betting this is the reason why he pulled the plug. I live in Bolivia and
would hate this attention. People kidnap your family, criminals target you,
etc.

------
klrr
After reading /r/gamedev on Flappy Bird I got quite disgusted by their
community. I hope doesn't represent the whole game development community. They
seriously compared Flappy Bird to more in-depth games and took its success as
some kind of threat without even realizing that short and addictive
entertainment _does_ sell. You can't compare Flappy Birds to "bigger" games,
it just doesn't make sense. Flappy Birds is an amazing game in its own right.

~~~
_pmf_
> After reading /r/gamedev on Flappy Bird I got quite disgusted by their
> community

The /r/ should have been a strong suggestion that disgust is imminent.

~~~
3rd3
That is a common overgeneralization. I think you are closer to reality with:
"reddit isn’t weird, people are weird."

------
ses
This article definitely rings true. As someone who has published a few apps in
the past, not even games, 90% of feedback received was negative and completely
nonconstructive. It takes a while to realise it is nothing to do with the
quality of your work or in most cases at all related. Regardless due to the
low volume of downloads I received I responded to every single email or
comment requesting more constructive feedback and mostly never got a response.
In some cases I actually managed to help users with the ways they were using
the apps which gave me a good sense of satisfaction, but mostly it was a
complete waste of time. In one instance I really regretted replying as it just
encourages further abuse.

Looking back all I can say is I can sympathise with anyone who has this
problem and would also like to note weirdly I've never had the same experience
with web apps. I can only assume the demographic of usage and ease of
commenting on and contacting developers of mobile apps/games affects the
feedback and comments you get.

------
mcv
This makes me want to start a blog to share and mock all the irrational hatred
I'll receive if I ever make a successful app.

I'm not sure if that'd actually be a good idea, but there are so many trolls
out there getting a hardon from sending despicable threats from a position of
anonimity and non-accountability, that I think exposing those creeps somehow
would be a public service.

~~~
javajosh
That would be a good side-project if you were to start a "hate filter" company
who's sole purpose is to filter the hate for a client, and present it to them,
perhaps, as a dry statistic. You could then take the content and expose it.
Now the haters become the brunt of the joke - it would be great to associate
their real names with their hate, as well.

~~~
thenomad
I have in the past (as someone who publishes artistic projects on the Web)
employed other people to collate and filter the feedback we've had. It's a lot
easier to face an 80-comment thread where 20 comments are contentless abuse if
you can just read a single line that says "Negative, no specific focus: 25%".

------
kyro
When you understand that the majority of people out there are followers,
cannot be bothered to risk making anything on their own, are in constant
search of leaders to tell them what to say and believe, and take the lowest-
effort path to approval and attention (eg sensationalist simple-minded
criticism), and that there are others out there who are aware of this and
exploit it (eg bloggers), and that all this is the _norm_ and has been, you'll
be better prepared to deal with, or better, ignore the haters.

People are lazy and selfish and will do whatever it takes to satisfy both
behaviors.

------
snake_plissken
If they go insane or experience serious anxiety, it's because some of the
players are nit-wit jerks who feel the need to disparage, insult and threaten
the developers on forums and social media outlets, and sometimes in real life.

Seriously (in the case of the Nguyen [1]), threatening a game developer of a
(arguably) very mundane and free game because the dev decided it's not worth
his time nor is the game's popularity aligned with his moral imperatives? This
type of shit GRINDS my gears.

[1] - [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/at-height-of-
popularit...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/at-height-of-popularity-
creator-pulls-flappy-bird-from-app-stores/)

------
vanderZwan
> One angry message has more effect than ten friendly ones.

This is something more people need to be aware of in general: these kind of
messages _are processed by two entirely different mental systems that do not
cancel each other out_ , with the negative emotions having a much larger
relative weight because they evolved out of the "avoiding things that kill
you" mechanisms, which is kind of a big deal in evolutionary terms.

------
Fuxy
That's a shame the developer was doing quite good with "Flappy Birds" he
should probably re-consider taking it off the genie is already out of the
bottle and taking it off now would not change anything.

Fuck it dude it doesn't matter just ignore anything relating to it it will go
away eventually.

Give it time the internet has a short attention span. They'll see something
more shiny soon enough.

------
yawz
I don't get the "everyone is a critic these days" argument.

We are entitled to our own opinions. As long as the opinions are expressed in
a non-insulting manner, we have the right to utter them. We don't need a PhD,
we don't need somebody's permission, we don't need to be rich, tall, fat, etc.

Remain polite but don't refrain from saying what you think!

------
baldfat
I claim that there is MUCH MORE to this Flappy Bird story then his feelings
were hurt so bad he left $50,000 a day.

The on going rumor is he bought reviews and that he was found out. The hammer
from Apple and Google was going to come down, but now he can save face and
come out with a game a few months later with clean reviews.

Glad the programer was able to make $1,500,000 so far it seems. Maybe he just
retired and is going to enjoy life, I hope this is the real answer.

~~~
jemeshsu
Any idea which ads network is used in Flappy Bird? iAds?

~~~
vijaykiran
On iOS, it is iAds.

------
jrgnsd
I find it ironic that a guy with the surname vogel (the German and Dutch word
for bird) writes about Flappy BIRD.

~~~
acheron
It's like rain on your wedding day.

------
DanBC
Dong an don nguyen are commen names So I bet the knife maker loves the extra
hits.

------
loup-vaillant
> _Nobody gets out of this world alive._

No kidding…

------
robodale
Yes because indie developers lead such horribly unique lives. Another pompous
piece of shit Jeff Vogel calls his blog. Get off your ivory tower. People go
nuts every day and every place.

~~~
kevinh
Perhaps you should try reading the post before you criticize it. Vogel
directly addresses that.

