Flappy Bird came from out of nowhere and rocketed to the top of mobile app stores’ charts, but the man who created the game wasn’t ready for the spotlight. Nguyen Ha Dong’s insanely frustrating mobile app was reportedly pulling in $50,000 a day for the developer, but according to a series of tweets it was also ruining his “simple life.” As such, he announced over the weekend that he planned to pull the game from Apple and Google’s mobile app stores — and on Sunday he followed through.
Flappy fans were not happy.
“I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down,” Dong posted from his Twitter account. “I cannot take this anymore.”
Just how popular was Flappy Bird? That one tweet was retweeted more than 132,000 times.
And with popularity, of course, comes insane fans who were not happy at all to learn the app would be removed from app stores. The app’s fans are so insane, in fact, that many of them replied to Dong’s tweet by threatening him with violence. Some people went as far as to threaten to murder the developer or even kill themselves if he pulled the app.
CNBC’s social media editor Eli Langer compiled a few gems into a Twitter timeline. Examples include:
“YOU BEST NOT BE DELETING FLAPPY BIRD BECAUSE I WILL MURDER YOU IF U DO.”
“If you delete flappy bird I will literally kill myself. It’s my drug and I am so addicted!! PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS TO MEEE PLEASEE.”
“I’ll find you and i’ll kill you.”
“NO ONLY 1 HOUR I WILL KILL YOU IF U TAKE IT DOWN.”
“I will kill you mother f**ker.”
What is this game fans are so passionate about that they’re willing to publicly threaten to kill a man for removing it from app stores? Players tap on the phone’s screen repeatedly to keep a small bird in flight, maneuvering to avoid hitting pipes as they do.
That’s it.
Devices with Flappy Birds installed are currently selling on eBay for as much as $100,000. What a world.
