VietNamNet Bridge – Nguyen Ha Dong, the father of “Flappy bird,” the game that has caused a global fever, left a message on his Twitter Dong Nguyen--on February 8 night that he would take down the game from App Store and Google Play.
Vietnamesegame makes the gamers’ world feverish
“I am sorry Flappy Bird’s users, 22 hours from now, I will take Flappy bird down. I cannot take this anymore,” he wrote in the message.
Dong affirmed that the decision does not relate to any legal issues. He just cannot keep it anymore. He also affirmed that he will not sell Flappy Bird and he will continue making games.
Some foreign newspapers have raised the doubts that Dong copied the ideas of other foreign made games.
Prior to that, Dong said on local newspapers that it took him 2-3 days only to make Flappy Bird and he used the graphics of some other games.
He once said on The Verge that when creating the bird, he was inspirited by Cheep Cheep of Mario game, and the green chimneys in Flappy bird were inspired from Nintendo games he usually played in his childhood.
Flappy bird has made the world’s gamers’ community feverish. It is leading in the number of downloads from App Store, used for iOS-run devices, and from Google Play, used for Android-run devices.
Flappy Bird was put into the online app markets in May 2013, but it only got popular in November 2013.
More than 50 million downloads have been reported, mostly in the US, while 470,000 comments have been made.
The decision by Dong to take down Flappy Bird has made gamers dazzled. They have made a wild guess that the public pressure has become unbearable for Dong.
He has become a copyright infringement suspect. Some people have doubts that Dong played tricks to push Flappy Bird into the higher position in the rankings. Especially, Thanh Nien newspaper has quoted a Ministry of Finance’s official as saying that the ministry has told the taxation bodies to examine Dong’s income, which local newspapers say could be up to $50,000 a day.
Dong has replied to all the questions on Twitter. He said he is not afraid of the great success of the Flappy Bird, but of the way people are using the game.
Commenting about Dong’s decision, Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon quoted Dong’s saying: “The press has exaggerated the success of the game. This is the thing I never want. Please give me a little peace.”
Meanwhile, Vietnamese gamers believe that Dong now tries to avoid the public because he fears he may face the accusation of the copyright infringement and may have to pay tax arrears for his huge income.
Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of ePi Technologies, said on Buu Dien newspaper that $50,000 per day is not the actual income for Dong from Flappy Bird. He believes that Dong did not reveal the actual figure because he feared the high income may raise jealousy.
The same newspaper has also quoted blogger Nguyen Ngoc Long as advising Dong to “hide” from the mass media, because Dong still does not have experience to work with the press, and that his careless statements may make him suffer.
K. Chi