You rarely, if ever, see an app get so popular that the developer voluntarily pulls it, but that's exactly what happened to Flappy Bird. We were lead to believe that Dong Nguyen, the developer of the game, just wanted to go back to living a simple life, but he took a different direction in a recent interview with Forbes. According to Doug, you were only supposed to play the game a few minutes here and there, but you got addicted to it. So the only way to fix the problem was to delete it from the Play Store and iOS App Store.
“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. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”
Now whether we were addicted to the game or not, there is no question that Mr. Nguyen was stressed over the spotlight. Forbes said he was very nervous in his interview as he smoked a bunch of cigarettes and doodled several monkey heads during the 45 minute session.
Sure you will find various versions of the game, but they will never be the same as the original. Doug was asked if he had anything to say to disappointed fans of the game, and he simply said, “Thank you very much for playing my game.”
source: Forbes
It’s not really gone. Surely I am not the only android user sharing the .apk with those who forgot to download it on time?