Yesterday, people following Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen saw this tweet:
I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014
It has been about 23 hours (at the time I am writing this) since the tweet first appeared on Nguyen’s twitter. And as of now, Flappy Bird is still available on the App Store according to a quick Google search when for all purposes should not be. So what exactly is going on here?
I have two theories. One of them is that enough fans got the word out, left positive reviews and tweeted their support for Nguyen. This could have lead him to reconsider removing the game from the store. This would be the more positive of the two theories, showing that fans can save something they like if they try hard enough.
My other theory this was a marketing ploy. Could he be doing this to generate free advertising for the game? Was this all a hoax to make more money from all the ads? Let’s look at what is going on. Nyguyen had sent out a series of tweets from his main account and back up account. All of them explained why he was taking down Flappy Bird. They seemed very genuine. A little after I began to write this article, he tweeted this from his back-up account:
If I get 50k Retweets I will put flappy bird back on the App Store #flappybird #dongatory
— Dong Nguyen (@Dongatory___) February 9, 2014
As of the writing of this article, it only has 10 retweets, but I’m sure as word gets out, it will get the retweets it needs.
As I was writing this, I went to go check the App Store on my iPad to see if I could download Flappy Bird to show my support. According to that, Flappy Bird no longer exists, yet the Google search I did earlier allows me to go to it’s iTunes link. So, I thought I would have a definite answer for all of you, but I do not.
We will keep you updated as we gain more information about this.
Published: Feb 10, 2014 06:48 am