Flappy Bird
Flappy Bird might return wikimedia commons

Nguyen Ha Dong, Flappy Bird developer, has recently announced he would be removing the popular app from apps stores. A few hours after, the developer stayed true to his word and the game was removed from the App Store around midnight from Google Play Store on Sunday.

Dong clarified he took down the app for other reasons and not legally. But a recent warning from Nintendo said otherwise.

He posted on his Twitter: "22 hours rom now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down."

"It is not anything related to legal issues. I cannot take this anymore," Dong added. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the app has gone off from the map entirely. Users who have downloaded the game can still continue playing.

Some users even reported to auction their mobile devices with Flabby Bird running. iDownloadBlog noted a 1 GB Iphone 5s now sells at $99,000 following 74 bids. Starting bid was at $650 and escalated to thousands of dollars. Also, there was an iPhone 5 featuring a pre-installed Flappy Bird priced at $80,700. The initial bid for the handset is at $750. There are more users going to eBay selling their devices with pre-installed Flappy Birds.

The app has been so successful with daily earnings of $50,000 from ad revenues. According to Reuters, the developer was supposed to create a Windows version before it was removed. Other developers may capitalize on the success of their apps to develop and address more needs, the Vietnamese results to do otherwise.

While reports said it was a personal decision, there are also other reports claiming it might be because of Nintendo's warning. According to BGR, Nintendo issued Dong a warning letter for its similarities with the Mario video game.

But Nintendo denied having anything to do with the removal of the game.

"While we usually do not comment on the rumors and speculations, we have already denied the speculation," The Wall Street Journal quoted a spokesman from the company.

The developer simply said he cannot take it anymore for removing the game from the app stores.