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Transcript:
Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Ryan Geertsma.
Voice 2
And I’m Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
On February 8, 2014, an app game was very very popular. In fact, it was the most popular app game in more than 50 countries. The game was called “Flappy Bird”. Anyone with a smartphone could download Flappy Bird and play it. The man who made the game is Nguyen Ha Dong. In an interview with the news website The Verge he said that he was making over $50,000 US dollars every day from his game. However, only one day later, on February 9, Nguyen removed Flappy Bird from the app store. People could no longer buy this app. Why would Nguyen remove such a popular game, even while he was making so much money? Today’s Spotlight is on the rise and fall of Flappy Bird.
Voice 2
Flappy Bird is a very simple game to play. All you have to do is hit, or tap, your finger very gently on the screen of your smartphone. As you tap the screen, a small bird moves up and forward on the screen. But as it flies forward, the bird must fly through spaces between sets of green pipes. If the bird hits any of the green pipes, the game is over. The goal is to go through as many sets of green pipes as possible. The bird flies quickly. The space between the pipes is small. But every time you avoid a set of pipes, you earn a point. There is no end or finish line for the bird to reach. It just continues flying forward until you hit a green pipe. The game sounds simple, but it is extremely difficult.
Voice 1
The creator of Flappy Bird, Nguyen Ha Dong, is from Hanoi, Vietnam. He is 29 years old. Nguyen has been making games for four years. He has built other app games too. But none have been as popular as Flappy Bird. Nguyen mostly makes the games after he comes home from working at his job. He makes them because he enjoys doing it. Nguyen created Flappy Bird in only a few days. He explained to the website Chocolate Lab Apps how he put the game together.
Voice 3
“I made the game alone so there is no team. And my games are very simple so there is no need for more people. I like to reuse my artwork from game to game. I actually drew the bird in Flappy Bird in 2012 to use in a different game. But the project was cancelled. All the programming took around two to three days with all of the details. That is how long it took to make the game play feel right. In my games, there are no impossible situations that players cannot pass.”
Voice 2
On May 24, 2013, Nguyen released Flappy Bird in the App store. People could download the game to their smartphones. So what happened? Nothing. During the next few months, a few people downloaded the game. A few wrote their opinions of the game in the App store as a review.
Voice 1
But in November of 2013, more and more people discovered the game. They shared it with their friends on Twitter. And by January 10, 2014, Flappy Bird became a top ten app. It was one of the ten most popular games in the United States and other countries. Every day more and more people downloaded Flappy Bird. They shared their high scores and their opinions about the game on Twitter and Facebook. It became more and more popular every day.
Voice 2
Game developers may work for years to have this kind of success. Some people accused Nguyen of paying money to increase his game’s popularity. They accused him of buying false app reviews saying the game was very good. Nguyen claimed on Twitter:
Voice 3
“It is hard to believe, I understand. But I have no resources to do anything more than uploading the game.”
Voice 1
Many people wondered why this extremely simple game was so popular. People who played the game wrote reviews about it at the app store. They said that the game was addicting. When they played they wanted to play more and more. It was difficult to get a high score, but very easy to play. So a person could play many games very quickly — and waste a lot of time. Many of the reviews described how people could not stop playing the game.
Voice 2
Using Twitter, many people started communicating with Nguyen. Some said nice things. But other people threatened him. The pressure of all of this became too much for Nguyen to deal with. He was overwhelmed. He wrote on Twitter:
Voice 3
“I can call Flappy Bird a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.”
Voice 1
So on February 9, 2014, Nguyen announced on Twitter that he was going to remove Flappy Bird from the app store. He simply wrote:
Voice 3
“I am sorry Flappy Bird users. 22 hours from now, I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore. It is not because of legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore. I also do not sell Flappy Bird, so please do not ask.”
Voice 1
He also added:
Voice 3
“And I still make games.”
Voice 2
After Nguyen tweeted this information, people did not know if he was serious about removing the app. Some people thought it was just a way to make more money. However, just as Nguyen promised, he removed the game from the app store. People who had already downloaded the game could still play it. But no one else could get it. Over 50 million people had downloaded Flappy Bird. And over 16 million had talked about it on Twitter. But now it was gone.
Voice 1
A few days later, Nguyen told Forbes Magazine why he removed Flappy Bird from the app store. He said:
Voice 3
“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 is best to remove Flappy Bird. It is gone forever.”
Voice 2
What do you think? What happened to Nguyen Ha Dong? Did he make the right decision? Have you played Flappy Bird? What did you think about the game? Were you addicted to it? Tell us what you think. You can leave your comments on our website. Or find us on Facebook — just search for Spotlight Radio.