With social media marketing included in our range of services, we like to keep our ears (or at least one ear) close to the Twittersphere, and for the past few weeks we’ve been hearing a lot about Flappy Bird. It’s the worst. It’s the best. It’s hideously addictive. Phones about the world have been thrown across rooms, and then quickly picked up again to try another round.
The premise is laughably simple. You simply tap a Super Nintnedo-esque bird to make him flap his wings through a series of obstacles. It’s hardly The Sims, but it has hooked millions throughout the world through its combination of childlike silliness and addictive toughness.
So imagine the world’s horror when Flappy Bird’s creator, Dong Nguyen, announced that he was taking the game down, giving those who have been free of Flappy Bird 22 hours to download the free app onto their phones.
True to his word, the game went down on Sunday February 9th and is no longer available on iTunes or Google Play (but still available on the Windows Phone store!)
Incredibly, Nguyen has also revealed that was taking advertising revenue of up to $50,000 dollars a day for space on the popular app. Nguyen elaborated, saying that Flappy Bird was disrupting his ‘simple life’ and that he wanted to escape his unexpected app-celebrity status.
When the app went down, madness ensued, including several Twitter users sending death threats to Nguyen and articles popping up all over the internet about the impact of Flappy Bird, from tech sites to all the respectable broadsheets (who should probably know better).
Probably the most surprising part of the Flappy Bird fallout is a rash of listings on eBay of phones with Flappy Bird already installed, including a mind boggling listing (now taken down) of an iPhone 5 selling for nearly $100,000 dollars (someone should tell that bidder to pop into town and grab a Windows Phone).
Just another day in the murky world of the internet.
