Earlier today Dong Nguyen, the creator of Flappy Bird, confirmed on Twitter that he would be bringing his game back to both the App Store and Google Play, just not anytime soon. After reading his tweet I couldn’t help wondering, does anyone actually care?
At first glance it would appear that people actually do. Within hours of Mr. Nguyen’s tweet, major news agencies like CNN had already posted about Flappy Bird’s coming return. But why?
Short answer: Click bait.
No one believes that Flappy Bird will be able to repeat its success with this reintroduction. The game’s viral success spurred on hundreds if not thousands of clones, and now has some pretty fierce competition. Flappy Bird wasn’t even original to begin with, and looking back, one might even wonder why or how it became popular to begin with.
(See: Malaysian dev makes Flappy Bird spoof called Flappy Mamak)
The competition for this particular genre is now much stronger than ever, but what will really keep Flappy Bird from repeating its success is that people have moved on. Certainly the name Flappy Bird still draws attention, and is decent click bait for news agencies, but the game’s 15 minutes of fame is drawing close to an end.
By pulling Flappy Bird off the market, Mr. Nguyen became a household name, which was a phenomenal long term business move. Because of his name recognition, you can be sure that some gaming sites will cover any game he develops. He has become infamous, and through this infamy Mr. Nguyen will have a successful career.
That being said, Flappy Bird is on its last few flaps.
If you want to play Flappy Bird right now check out:
Flappy Bird is gone but not forgotten. Pay tribute to it in Flap MMO. Flappy Bird review: it’s frustrating, dumb, and ridiculously addictive
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