Apple's iOS Game 'Flappy Bird' to Return in August
Speaking to CNBC's Kelly Evans, Flappy Bird Developer Dong Nguyen has announced plans of relaunching a sequel to the game on Apple's iOS App Store in August.
Nguyen said the goal of the sequel game is to be less addictive for players. This will be challenging as the upcoming version will have a multiplayer option. He did not explain his plans further. But as an implication, he would like to avoid harassment from players who became addicted to the early version.
Flappy Bird became a tremendous success after its launch through the App Store in May 2013. In an interview with The Verge dated Feb 5, Nguyen revealed a revenue of $50,000 a day from in-app ads alone. At this time, Flappy Bird had also been on top of the charts from App Store and Google Play Store. It had been downloaded 50 million times and acquired 47,000 reviews in the App store.
"The reason Flappy Bird is so popular is that it happens to be something different from mobile games today today, and is a really good game to compete against each other. People in the same classroom can play and compete easily because it is simple to learn, but you need skill to get a high score."
He had already revealed his plans of a sequel during the interview.
"Flappy Bird has reached a state where anything added to the game will ruin it somehow, so I'd like to leave it as is. I will think about a sequel but I'm not sure about the timeline."
Days after the interview, Nguyen shockingly announced he will be taking the game down.
"I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore. It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore. I also don't sell 'Flappy Bird', please don't ask. And I still make games," Nguyen posted on Twitter.
Following the Flappy Bird's success, there had been various clones of the games on Apple's iOS App Store such as Flappy Wings, Splashy Fish, Flying Cyrus and Tiny Flying Drizzy.