The Richest, world’s most entertaining site, has named Vietnamese Flappy Bird Creator Nguyen Ha Dong as a top 10 Internet millionaire who made his fortunes out of thin air, and now walks the Earth like a king.
Flappy Bird creator Nguyen Ha Dong.
“Now imagine if you created that game in under two hours, made yourself a fortune, then decided to delete it from the world because it became too much of an ‘addicting product?’ That’s exactly what fledgling game designer Dong Nguyen did in the last year. And it drove the world crazy while pushing his mysterious reputation through the roof”, the site says.
According to The Richest, ‘Flappy Bird’ was downloaded more than 50 million times and rated more than 90,000 times in its almost nine months of existence, making it one of the most addicting games in recent memory. Dong earned approximately US$3 million from in-game ads.
Released in May of 2013, the game got lost in the shuffle amongst thousands of other apps and didn’t gain any traction. Then inexplicably, eight months later it went viral. Ultimately earning Dong $50,000 a day, ‘Flappy Bird’ made its creator into a millionaire overnight.
Rounding out the top 10 list are World Press creator Matthew Mullenweg, social networking website Tumblr founder David Karp, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton, San Francisco-based international website Craigslist founder Craig Alexander Newmark, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, the ‘Drudge Report’ founder Matt Drudge, Minecraft creator Markus Persson, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Author E. L. James.
VOV/VNN