Flappy Bird selling for ridiculous prices on eBay

[Toon Master]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2014/02/10/flappy-bird-auction/5358289/

Want your Flappy Bird fix? You can still play it if you want to pay.....big time.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

....or you can download one of the ten million clones of it.

Or play any of the Newgrounds Flash games that were similar to it that existed fifteen years ago.

 

[Aquadementia]

Wouldn't you get the same thrill from playing Lunar Lander? Although, finding an Apple II to play it on is the real challenge.

 

[Gatordragon]

As an avid iOS gamer, I've heard about the Flappy Bird craze and controversy, though I never played the game myself. Flappy Bird was created by a Vietnamese developer in the Summer of 2013. It was a free, simple game with no in-app purchases. For whatever reason, it went viral in December. The fame (and infamy) was too much for the developer, who didn't expect or want the popularity. He was being harassed online and was even sent death threats. Eventually, he decided to pull the game to get everyone off his back though he's still making games.

If you ask me, pulling the game did nothing but create more interest in it. There's dozens of other games out there imitating it's style now, such as Ironpants and Flappy Bee. Heck, there's even conspiracy theories out there saying that Nintendo or even the Vietnamese mafia forced the developer to pull Flappy Bird. The Nintendo conspiracy theory was later discredited. I'm surprised such a small and simple free game was able to gather so much controversy.

I got my news about Flappy Bird from Touch Arcade, an iOS gaming news site. The forums there are a mess. There's people on there ridiculing Flappy Bird and it's developer and spouting junk like how "true gamers" would never play a simple game like that. Those people sicken me. I understand that people may not like Flappy Bird or are interested in it, but the developer is not a bad guy. He just made an incredibly simple game that happened to get unexpectedly popular.

 

[Michael24]

I'd never even heard of this game until just a couple days ago. I'm not sure what all the hoopla is? Or why I read about the creator saying it was too much to handle and pulling the game.

 

[CyclonatorZ]

It figures that, regardless of whether the original creator wanted lots of money (I'm not certain that he did), other less scrupulous people have immediately begun to cash in on his success. And you can almost certainly bet your smartphone on it that this is going to happen again.

 

[Jave]

I still have the original Flappy Bird on my iPhone...

Mmmm...

 

[ThisGuyTony]

Geez. Those prices are outrageous! I only played the game once and I thought it was hard.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

It figures that, regardless of whether the original creator wanted lots of money (I'm not certain that he did), other less scrupulous people have immediately begun to cash in on his success. And you can almost certainly bet your smartphone on it that this is going to happen again.

It's all but proven now the viral phenomenon is completely random and anything can become a success through the right chain reaction of social chatter. So yeah, some poor schmuck will have to deal with this sometime.

 

[GWOtaku]

The obsession over something so cheap and simple in either extreme (paying thousands to have it on one end, death threats against the creator on the other) is nothing short of insane. This is how mobile device gaming doesn't get taken seriously by a lot of people.

Incidentally, the guy seriously couldn't / wouldn't do better than just flagrantly ripping the warp pipes from Super Mario Bros? Lame.

 

[defunctzombie]

Is this an iPhone thing? Because anyone with an Android can get the game from one of the many game sites it was cross-posted on (like softpedia).

 

[Peter Paltridge]

We now know the real reason Flappy Bird was removed, and it's not for any of the reasons speculated. It's because......the game is too addictive, according to him.

According to Nguyen, the game’s addictiveness is what persuaded him to remove it, and the app is not coming back. “Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,” the developer said. “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 wasn't because of death threats. On the contrary, ever since he removed it, THAT'S when he started getting them.

 

[Gatordragon]

Ah, I see. Flappy Bird's developer thought the game's popularity was getting out of hand, so he axed it. Plain and simple. It's usually the simple solution that's correct.

It amuses me how many people complain about the guy for not milking the game for all it's worth. Apparently people can't make games for fun or as a hobby.

I wonder when this Flappy Bird thing will die down. I give it a few weeks.

 

[defunctzombie]

Lol, he's pretty naive. It's not gone forever, it lives on through clones and the google play accounts of everyone who downloaded it. They don't reach through the internet and physically take the software from your device.

 

[RegularCapital]

Flappy Bird is so ridiculously hyped up, It's not worth my time and attention, it's like people never played a video game before and I thought the Candy Crush craze was silly.

 

[Takao]

Since this thread was bumped, Nguyen has stated that he plans on bringing the game back.