Flappy Bird creator: it’s become ‘an addictive product’ so I killed it

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If you can’t get enough of Flappy Bird news, the app’s creator has come clean on the reasons behind the app’s sudden removal. Speaking out for the first time since he pulled his sleeper hit of a game from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play store, Vietnam-born Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen said in an exclusive interview with Forbes that he made the decision to kill the game because it has become “an addictive product”.

I wish I could kill half as much addictive product of my own! Some have suspected that Flappy Bird got yanked out of the App Store over intellectual property complaints from Nintendo, but the Japanese games took the unusual step of going on the record yesterday to confirm that Mario had no hand in killing Nguyen’s game

Nguyen told Forbes:

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.

He went on to say that the game’s wild popularity earned him “a lot” – according to The Verge, more than $50,000 per day in ad revenue.

The sudden Flappy Bird madness – “my life has not been as comfortable as I was before” – prompted him to kill the game.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Following the app’s removal, folks took to Twitter to send him suicide notes and dead threats. “I don’t think it’s a mistake,” he said. “I have thought it through.”

Nguyen will continue to develop games. “After the success of Flappy Bird, I feel more confident, and I have freedom to do what I want to do,” he said.

His other App Store games like Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block seem to be doing pretty well following Flappy Bird‘s removal.

If you can’t get over Flappy Bird‘s removal, I suggest checking out a few nice alternatives highlighted at the bottom of this article.