Flappy Bird

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Flappy Bird”?

• “It’s that really popular game, where you have to press the screen to make the bird fly through the obstacles”.
• “I really hated that game and yet I can’t stop playing it”.
• “Flappy Bird? Never heard of it before”.
• “Ooohh”.

Flappy Bird is a mobile game where you have to tap the screen to make the bird fly through the pipe obstacles. Each time you pass through an obstacle, you will receive 1 point. The goal of the game is pretty straightforward, to get the highest point. Published by a Vietnamese indie developer named Dong Nguyen on 23 May 2013, this mobile game quickly became the talk of the world. Even though it was extremely popular, Flappy Bird was shut down as of 9 February 2014 because of personal reasons.

What makes the mobile game Flappy Bird extremely popular? It was definitely not because of the graphic, since it was very simple and there are many games with better graphics. The emergence of Flappy Bird started because a tweet that said “F*** Flappy Bird”. Before that tweet, the game itself was invisible, no existence. From that on, it is basically a love/hate relationship with the game. Even though the game is extremely frustrating, yet people are addicted and keep playing Flappy Bird.