The Rise, Fall (& Rise?) of Flappy Bird

Tap Tap.

Its 2014.

The mobile games era is well and truly upon us. Candy Crush has been rotting teeth for a couple of years, as Clash of Clans is sneaking into wallets. There is Temple Run, already spawning clones egging us to play “just one more time”. And of course, some very Angry Birds had appeared in 2009. Now, another avian adventure begins. A pixelated bird with a death wish captures the world's attention.

Flappy Bird is the brainchild of Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen. It has been pecking around the app stores since May 2013, but has not quite found a nest. A late bloomer, it skyrockets to huge popularity in early 2014.

It is a deceptively simple game. Players ‘tap to flap’, helping a bug-eyed bird navigate a world built with pipes imported from Mario Bros. Despite- or perhaps because of- the challenging, even frustrating gameplay, and basic graphics, it becomes a global phenomenon.

Downloads soar, App Store and Google Play Store charts are topped, ad revenue starts to pour in. Nguyen reportedly finds himself earning an astonishing $50,000 per day in ad revenue. This is the very definition of soaring little-guy internet success.

Then, at the height of its popularity, it vanishes.

Nguyen does the unthinkable. He pulls the plug and sends Flappy Bird to that great app store in the sky. The internet collectively loses its mind (did we say “break the internet” back then?). Phones with Flappy Bird installed suddenly become hot commodities, selling for thousands on eBay.

What happened?

Getting Hooked.

Flappy Bird's meteoric rise wasn't quite a random occurrence. There had been a larger phenomenon at play in the mobile gaming world. Developers had seemingly cracked the code on how to make games highly engaging… and highly addictive.

A cocktail of psychological tricks were in the bag- variable reward schedules, social proof thats heightened FOMO, progress mechanics that gave wing to our sunk cost fallacies. Some would later wonder if we weren't just playing games; but being played.

The result? A mobile gaming industry that exploded faster than a Candy Crush colour bomb. Games like Angry Birds, Temple Run, and Pokémon GO became cultural phenomena. The ‘freemium’ model, offering free downloads with in-app purchases became the most common. While this allowed more players to access games, it began to raise concerns about exploitative practices, particularly around younger users.

Too Close to the Sun?

Dong Nguyen grew up in Van Phuc, a village outside Hanoi. When his family eventually got a Nintendo, he played a lot of Super Mario Bros. At 19, he placed in the top 20 of a programming competition and got an internship with Punch Entertainment, one of Hanoi’s only game companies back then. It made cellphone games.

Later, Nguyen said he wanted to make games for people like himself: busy, harried, always on the move. “I pictured how people play,” he says, as he taps his iPhone and reaches his other hand in the air. “One hand holding the train strap.”

One weekend in April 2013, he churned out a “new simple game” that asked us, simply, to tap to flap. The game made no dent- on Twitter, the first mention came only five months later. A three-word review, “Fuck Flappy Bird.”

Two months later, it was topping the charts.

So why pull the game?

Its January 2014. News of how much money Nguyen is raking in has spread. His face is splashed in Vietnamese papers and TV- this is how his parents learn their son has made a wildly successful game! Reporters swarm their home. Nguyen feels suffocated by the attention. He tweets, “It is something I never want. Please give me peace.”

But it might be something more that makes him clip Flappy Bird's wings.

Dong is drowning in it all. The game's addictive nature is keeping him up at night. He says to Forbes soon after, “Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed. But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it's best to take down Flappy Bird. It's gone forever.”

It is like a bartender smashing all his bottles because people were having too much fun.

He later reveals more to Rolling Stone, sharing messages he has saved on his phone.

One is from a woman chastising him for “distracting the children of the world.” Another laments that “13 kids at my school broke their phones because of your game, and they still play it cause it’s addicting like crack.” E-mails from workers who had lost their jobs, a mother who had stopped talking to her kids. “At first I thought they were just joking,” he says, “but I realize they really hurt themselves.” Nguyen – who says he botched tests in high school because he was playing too much Counter-Strike – genuinely took them to heart.

On Ethical Gaming

(ever so briefly)

The 2010s also saw an intensification in ethical discussions, influenced in part by the highly addictive mobile gameplay that had become prevalent. Dong's concern about the game's addictive potential resonated with a growing unease in the industry. The question was asked more meaningfully- could games be compelling without being exploitative?

Developers began exploring ways to create engaging experiences without relying on potentially harmful mechanics. Monument Valley, Florence, and Alto's Adventure demonstrated this, and are now recognised as shining examples of mobile games that could be both commercially successful and ethically designed.

Games like these often opted for one-time purchase models, prioritised finite, meaningful experiences over endless gameplay loops, and proved that mobile games could be appreciated as artistic works rather than just time-fillers.

Rise From the Ashes?

Fast forward to 2024, and like a phoenix un-splatting itself from a green pipe, Flappy Bird is making a comeback. Of sorts. Because here's the kicker: Nguyen has nothing to do with it.

While the iconic bird will soon flap around new pipes, it is an organization calling itself the?Flappy Bird Foundation?that announced this resurrection. It claims to be “led by a dedicated team of passionate fans and industry veterans who share a deep love for Flappy Bird and sought to rescue the iconic gameplay and IP for the community of over 100 million enthusiasts.” It all seems to be based on an ‘abandoned’ trademark that has since been acquired by this group. Either way, Dong's not impressed.

(Michael Roberts, the “chief creative” behind Flappy Bird’s return, is the founder of 1208 Productions, a mobile game developer deeply involved with NFTs and cryptocurrency. This connection has raised eyebrows, especially among fans wary of crypto integration into beloved classics.)

"It's a gross time to be a real artist, but a great time to be morally void human-shaped viruses", says a veteran game animator.

The mobile gaming landscape has evolved since Flappy Bird first took flight. Players are savvier, developers are (sometimes) more conscientious, and the conversation around gaming ethics is louder. The most engaging games ought to be those that don’t just keep us playing-they respect our time, our wallets, and our mental well-being. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to Wordle.

Meanwhile, Dong, who still makes games but stays very much out of any spotlight, likely continues to live the same philosophy he spouted back in 2014.

“I’m master of my own fate. Independent thinker.”

Last week on Eurogramer · more reading from 2014: Rolling Stone · Forbes ·

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