Gossip Gamer: The end of Flappy Bird

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Photo by Destinee Murray

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By Destinee Murray, staff writer

If you’re like me, you have a game addiction to Flappy Bird. If you don’t, you’re either lying, deleted the game, or don’t have a smartphone. Don’t worry though, because the chances of your addiction growing has now slimmed down.

Flappy Bird is off the charts. No, I’m not referring to how popular the game is on the market. It’s now literally off the charts since the game’s developer, Dong Nguyen of .GEARS Studios, took it down.

The mobile game gained a lot of popularity in its short life. Even though I raged every single time I’ve played it, I could never bring myself to delete it off my phone like most people.

Good thing I didn’t.

Even if you did delete the game, you can still re-download it if you look through your purchases. It’s only those who have never downloaded the game that can’t get it now.

Flappy Bird is a game that involves two pipes extending from the top and bottom to create a small passageway for a bird to pass through. In order to control the height of the bird, one must tap the touch-screen.

The graphics of the game received a lot of criticism since it looked as if Nguyen stole the look from Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. It was still a good game that Nguyen said was meant to be played when people were relaxed, like when they had free time.

I know, I know… the game seems pretty simple but it actually isn’t. For the first few days I had it, I could barely get past one passageway. Now, my record is 58, and that’s nothing compared to other people who have passed 200 and 300.

Everyone became so obsessed with getting a high score that it trended on Twitter as #flappybirdhighscore. It was as if the game had taken over society. The high score tweets were soon joined by some death threats when Nguyen took the game off the market.

Nguyen tweeted on February 8 that he took the game down because he “cannot take this anymore” but reassured everyone that he will still be making games. He also tweeted on the same day, “I can call ‘Flappy Bird’ is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.”

In a Bloomberg article, Nguyen spoke to a reporter in Hanoi explaining that, “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.”

Now there are so many copies of Flappy Bird like Flappy Super Hero, Flappy Valentine, Flappy Fish, etc. There are also games very similar like Splashy Fish, City Bird, and Iron Pants. Everyone wants to be the new Flappy Bird, but none can compare to the original.

There are also people selling their phones on eBay just because they have the game on their phone. I saw one the other day with the starting price at $600 and some at around $2,000, and even one for $10,000. All of these seemed bogus, with eBay themselves flagging and taking the auctions down, although there did seem to be one legitimate sale of an iPhone5S for $250.

Nguyen has stated that he will no longer offer for free or sell Flappy Bird, but people can enjoy his other games that include: Smashing Kitty, Droplet Shuffle, Shuriken Block, and Ninjas Assault.

Perhaps,one of his other games will be on the rise to take the place of the renowned Flappy Bird, or Maybe an entirely new game and developer will take its place.

For some of us, the Flappy Bird addiction is long gone, and there are still lots of people who play Flappy Bird to try to get a higher score than their friends.

However, with its lack of availability and popularity waning, Flappy Bird players can rest and remain calm, just as Nguyen envisioned…well…at least until a new game addiction takes over.