Watch out Flappy Bird copycats, the original is making a comeback. Developer Dong Nguyen has confirmed with fans on Twitter that he is restoring his hit game to its rightful place in the App Store, although he hasn’t given a specific launch date.
Nguyen is also on hand at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and several developers and gamers that have run in to him at the event have said the same thing: that Flappy Bird will be making its highly-anticipated comeback…
Here’s one of Nguyen’s tweets via Gawker:
@painfullpacman Yes. But not soon.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) March 19, 2014
And here’s another tweet from developer Todd Moore:
Creator of Flappy Bird found and he told me he is going to repost it to the App Store!!! pic.twitter.com/odmKbWaTw8
— Todd Moore (@toddmoore) March 19, 2014
At the height of its popularity, Flappy Bird was earning more than $50,000 per day in ad revenue. And even since it’s been pulled, the game still earns Nguyen a healthy amount of money thanks to the millions of people still playing FB on their devices.
So why put a stop to such a lucrative business? In an interview earlier this month, Nguyen told Rolling Stone that he pulled Flappy Bird from the App Store due to all of the unwanted attention, but he did mention he was considering bringing the game back.
“Since taking Flappy Bird down, he says he’s felt “relief. I can’t go back to my life before, but I’m good now.” As for the future of his flapper, he’s still turning down offers to purchase the game. Nguyen refuses to compromise his independence. But will Flappy Bird ever fly again? “I’m considering it,” Nguyen says. He’s not working on a new version, but if he ever releases one it will come with a “warning,” he says: “Please take a break.”
Since the original was removed, thousands of Flappy Bird copycats have made their way into the App Store, and a handful have even taken turns at the top of the Top Charts. The fad seems to be dying out now, though, as there’s currently only 1 in the Top 10.