Flappy Bird
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
2014·The social era·skill
The most downloaded game in the world, withdrawn by its author because he thought it was doing harm.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Faby
- Spread in
- 2014
- Began as
- Something you played
- Where it started
- app-store
- Made by
- Dong Nguyen, of Vietnam
- What it said
- “I am sorry Flappy Bird users, 22 hours from now, I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore.”
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Tap to make a bird flap. Fly between green pipes. Hit anything and it is over immediately, and you start again. Dong Nguyen, a Vietnamese developer, built it in a few days in 2013 using a bird from a project he had abandoned. It went nowhere for eight months and then, in January 2014, became the most downloaded free game on the App Store.
Phones with the game still installed were listed for thousands of dollars. Clones arrived in such numbers that Apple and Google began rejecting submissions with Flappy in the title. It remains the standard reference for two separate arguments: what makes a game addictive, and what a creator owes the people who use their work.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A game made by one man in Vietnam was the most downloaded app in Apple’s store and earning fifty thousand dollars a day when he withdrew it, saying he could not take it any more.
TimelineIn order
- Posted
The game is released for the iPhone.1 What else happened on 24 May
- Took off
It becomes the most downloaded app in Apple’s store.1
- Later
Nguyen announces on Twitter that he will remove it.1
- Taken down
He does. Phones with the game installed are listed on eBay for 1,499 dollars and more.1
- Came back
A new version is announced by a group that has acquired the trademark. Nguyen says he has nothing to do with it.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asIt was removed for legal reasons.
ActuallyHe said it was because the game was addictive.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as something you played rather than watched. Originally published on app-store.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as something you played rather than watched. Originally published on app-store.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things