The Vietnamese-based creator of Flappy Birds has voluntarily removed the mobile game from the 
App Store after claiming to be overwhelmed by the amount of attention he has received online.
Despite rumours of legal issues and various cases of recent mobile gaming copywriting issues, the creator of the game Dong Nguyen claims that Flappy Birds has been removed from online stores because it “ruins my simple life”, and is overwhelmed by the amount of media attention he has attracted.
Short-lived Success
Flappy Birds was created in just two to three days, and was making as much as $50,000 a day from the advertising revenue. The game has been downloaded over 50 million times, with the game having gone viral after being promoted almost entirely on social media sites such as YouTube, where more than 22 million subscribers reviewed the game.
The passionate indie game developer in several Twitter posts claims that he has no plans on selling the game, and that he plans on releasing a sequel to Flappy Birds.
The game was launched in May 2013, with players having to tap on the screen to keep the bird in flight. The official version of Flappy Birds was only available on Apple and Android devices, but will no longer be available to buy in the App Store or Google Play. However those who have previously downloaded it will still have full access to the game.
This limited amount of access to the game has made mobile phones with Flappy Birds already downloaded particularly valuable, as phone owners with the game on already have been advertising their mobiles online for huge sums of money.
Will Flappy Birds flap again?
Users have been taking to social media to air their support of the game, with many players signing petitions to support its return to the App Store and Google Play.
Hashtags such as #RIPFlappyBird and #SaveFlappyBird have been used to raise awareness and encourage support for the return of the game. However, other players have been somewhat relieved by the fact the game has been removed, with claims that Flappy Birds is too addictive and can cause harm to phone screens as a result of overenthusiastic tapping.
