Dong Nguyen, the creator of the simple but brutally difficult Flappy Bird, said on Twitter that he will pull the game from the iTunes App Store and Google Play in the next 22 hours.
“I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore,” Nguyen said in a series of tweets. “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.”
By legal issues, Nguyen is referring to accusations that Flappy Bird is a copy of other games with similar concepts and artwork. Flappy Bird looks a lot like Piou Piou, for example, as its developer pointed out on Twitter. And the pipes in the game bear more than a passing resemblance to similar plumbing constructions in the Super Mario Bros. series of games.
Flappy Bird has become a huge hit, and has attracted a great deal of media attention lately. With more than 50 million downloads to date, the free game reportedly brings in more than $50,000 in ad revenue a day. If you want to still try out the game before it’s gone, time is quickly running out.
