Industry

The day before Flappy Bird shut down: what was Dong Nguyen thinking?

By MaxJun 11, 2025~1290 words · 5 min
May 2013 launch → Feb 2014 takedown takedown daily ~$50k 9 quiet months Jan viral He chose to remove his product at the peak of its curve
From obscurity to global frenzy → voluntary takedown, all in 8 weeks

Building Bird Bounce made me re-read the Flappy Bird story. February 9, 2014, Vietnamese indie developer Dong Nguyen announced on Twitter: "I'll take down Flappy Bird in 22 hours. I can't take it anymore." At the time, the game earned him about $50,000/day. 22 hours later, he really did. One of indie gaming's most dramatic moments.

Brief background

Flappy Bird launched on iOS App Store May 2013. Dong was 28, working solo at a small studio in Hanoi making mobile games. The game's core rule is dead simple: tap to flap, fly through pipes. Development took 2-3 days.

For 9 months after launch, Flappy Bird had zero attention. Dong later said in interviews he'd nearly forgotten the game existed.

January 2014 — things changed suddenly. Some unknown YouTuber started playing the game in videos, raging and throwing controllers theatrically. This "angry play" video unexpectedly went viral. Other YouTubers followed; Flappy Bird suddenly appeared in everyone's recommendations.

Late January, Flappy Bird hit #1 on iOS free downloads. Early February, daily revenue via AdMob banner ads was ~$50,000. Weekly downloads exceeded 10 million.

Then — he took it down.

Dong's explanation

February 9, 2014 tweet (verified via Wayback Machine):

"I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore."

He gave reasons in a Forbes interview (Lauren Orsini, March 2014):

1. "The game is too addictive; I don't like that." Dong got messages from users saying they'd missed work, fought with their partners, and lost sleep because of Flappy Bird. These reports disturbed him.

2. "Media attention crushed me." The sudden flood of journalist calls, interview requests, family and friends asking "how much do you earn now" — he felt he'd lost his life.

3. "I didn't make this game to make people addicted." Critical sentence. Dong said his original intent was "a few minutes during commute." Actual users played for hours straight.

Financial cost of takedown: at $50k/day, monthly direct loss ~$1.5M, annual loss ~$18M. Real, specific money.

Why this story is unsettling

10 years later, the Flappy Bird takedown reveals several unsettling things:

1. A "lightweight" game can trigger completely unexpected addiction. Flappy Bird has none of the standard "addiction design" elements — no levels, no reward loops, no daily missions, no IAP. It's just hard. But difficulty itself, under some psychological mechanism, produces strong "play once more" drive. This "frustration-hope-retry" loop is homologous to slot machines' "almost won-just barely-just one more coin."

2. Developer conscience and commercial incentive are deeply conflicting. Current commercial app design philosophy is "maximize user time-on-screen." This often runs opposite to "user's true long-term wellbeing." Dong is a truly rare developer who felt this conflict unbearable and acted. Most developers rationalize: "users like it, I'm giving them what they want."

3. Media attention itself is noise pollution. Dong was 28, working in a small Hanoi apartment. No PR team, no lawyer, no agent. Suddenly facing global media: not "opportunity," but "disaster." We tend to imagine "going viral" as purely positive; for many it's traumatic.

On the "addiction" debate

Whether Flappy Bird is "addictive" has been debated academically.

Mainstream "behavioral addiction" framework (Mark Griffiths et al.) requires 6 criteria: salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, relapse.

For Flappy Bird player behavior:

So strictly, Flappy Bird isn't "addiction" but "short-term obsession." But Dong's intuitive sense that "users are being harmed" was closer to reality — even days of obsession can make some users miss work and dates.

The "addiction" criteria are strict. But "short-term obsession" impact on lives is enough to make a developer with conscience pull their best-earning product.

What he did after

Dong wasn't "forgotten" as many predicted. He kept making games but in a totally different style. In 2015 he released Swing Copters and Ninja Spinki — two games deliberately designed to not be addictive. Both flopped commercially.

In 2017 he founded GEARS Studios, making more "healthy" casual games. The company runs to this day; not a huge success but supports him and his team.

In a 2019 interview, asked "regret taking down Flappy Bird?", he replied:

"No. It was the right decision then. I sleep well now. The games I make I'd recommend to my own kids. That's worth far more than any money."

That's a 32-year-old talking 5 years after taking down his peak product. I believe him.

How BverGame views this

Leo and I, building BverGame, referenced Flappy Bird's story repeatedly. Specific decisions:

1. We make Bird Bounce but don't feature it on the homepage. It's a good game, but its obsession mechanic is real. We honestly note in the game page "beginners die many times" to warn that this game has a steep curve. Hope players play with awareness.

2. We don't have "daily missions." Commercial mobile games' core retention is daily check-ins and login streak rewards. This essentially leverages "loss aversion" psychology. BverGame has none of this — play when you want, leave when you don't, no penalty.

3. Our AdSense is passive. Not that we don't need money, but we choose "longer time-on-site = revenue" passive model rather than "make more addictive so users stay longer = revenue" active manipulation model. Former is indirect; latter is direct.

Closing

Flappy Bird returned to App Store later in 2014, but Dong removed the original and only published Flappy Birds Family (Amazon Fire TV only). This version drew no attention; Dong didn't seem to care.

This story teaches me two things:

First, "developer feels they're doing something wrong" is itself a useful signal. If your product makes you lose sleep, you should stop. Even if data looks good.

Second, true "independence" isn't "no one bossing you around" — it's "able to refuse the most profitable path." Dong could have taken ads, sold merch, IPO'd. He chose what mattered most to himself.

One of 2014's hardest stories to replicate. Hope to see similar people again.

Max is BverGame's co-operator. Sources: Lauren Orsini's March 2014 Forbes interview; Dong Nguyen's February 2014 original tweet (Wayback Machine); Mark Griffiths' behavioral addiction framework. Dong's later company activity per LinkedIn public info.