The Real Story Behind Why Flappy Bird Was Deleted (Probably)

By now most of you are familiar with Flappy Bird — the super difficult endless tapper that has taken the world by storm. For the past 24 days, Flappy Bird has been the number one free app on Apple’s App Store®. The creator Dong Nguyen is reported to be making $50,000 per day in ad revenue. For a terrific review on why Flappy Bird’s design is genius go here. The game is not without controversy however as just this weekend the creator of Flappy Bird announced that he is pulling his app off both app stores. Why would an indie developer in Vietnam voluntarily walk away from millions of dollars? To get a better understanding we have to go back to the beginning.

The Flappy Bird Game

The Flappy Bird game is a simple yet addictive mobile game that first fluttered onto the scene in 2013. Created by Dong Nguyen, a solo Vietnamese developer, the game was initially released on the Apple App Store. The objective is straightforward: control a bird that must navigate through gaps between green pipes without crashing into them. This simplicity, combined with its accessibility, made the game appealing to a wide range of players. The minimalist design and easy-to-understand mechanics quickly turned Flappy Bird into a viral sensation, capturing the hearts of millions.

One of the key reasons behind the massive popularity of the Flappy Bird game was its addictive nature. The game’s simplicity and lack of complex player controls made it easy for anyone to pick up and play. However, its challenging gameplay kept players coming back for more. The infinite runner style, where the goal is to see how far you can go without hitting the pipes, created a compelling loop that was hard to resist. The game’s ability to elicit strong, primal, and emotional reactions from players—ranging from frustration to triumph—fueled its addictive nature and kept people tapping away on their mobile devices.

A Nose Dive into the Abyss

If you’d thought Flappy Bird was just released this past January, you’d be wrong. Nguygen actually launched Flappy Bird on Apple’s App Store on May 24th 2013. According to App Annie, when Flappy Bird launched it ranked 892 in the family game category. Three days later it had fallen off the charts and into the abyss, where it stayed for the next five months. Completely unloved, unknown. Flappy Bird was for all intents and purposes a failure.

Flappy Bird Takes Flight: The Story of Dong Nguyen

On October 29th, 2013 Flappy Bird clawed its way back into the charts. In the months following, it went on a turbulent roller coaster ride zig-zagging up and down the charts until finally settling in at number one on January 17. In an interview with The Chocolate Lab Apps Nguyen was asked if the game’s success was due to only organic installs to which he responded:

“I didn’t use any promotion methods. All accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram about Flappy Bird are not mine. The popularity could be my luck.”

Are we to believe that Nguyen didn’t spend a dime on user acquisition and just got lucky? A quick look at the rank history on App Annie paints an entirely different picture.