The rise and fall of Flappy Chook: He hated his personal recreation, although it made him a millionaire
Keep in mind the primary viral cellular video games that seemingly everybody had? I’m speaking about video games like Offended Birds, Doodle Bounce and Fruit Ninja. The story behind one in all these classics is especially curious: Flappy Chook.
The little yellow chook took the world by storm and made its developer, Nguyen Ha Dong, a millionaire in a single day – and but he determined to easily take away the sport from the app shops someday.
The rationale: it ruined his life. I’ll inform you what’s behind it and what Ha Dong is doing at present right here.
What’s Flappy Chook anyway?
For these of you who aren’t as previous as me or weren’t a lot into smartphone video games again within the day:
Flappy Chook was a easy 2D recreation the place you needed to steer a bit of yellow chook by means of an limitless collection of inexperienced tubes. Your activity was to make the chook fly so far as doable with out touching the tubes. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
Why was Flappy Chook so profitable? It was the easy nature that made the sport so interesting. With its minimalist graphics and easy gameplay, it captivated hundreds of thousands of gamers worldwide. The yellow chook took off particularly strongly when the most important YouTuber on the time, PewDiePie, uploaded a Let’s Play and launched the cellular recreation to his viewers.
However what actually set Flappy Chook aside was its cruel problem The exact management of the chook was an actual problem and it was extraordinarily tempting to play spherical after spherical. The sport unfold like wildfire on social media and shortly half the world was enjoying Flappy Chook.
For a while, the sport was the preferred app on the earth.
Why did it destroy Ha Dong’s life?
However how can such an enormous success destroy an individual’s life? Isn’t that the dream of each recreation developer?
Fame and fortune have downsides: It turned out that the sudden fame and immense monetary success have been an actual burden for Nguyen Ha Dong. When the sport reached its peak, he earned an estimated $50,000 per day from in-game promoting. That’s a sum most builders can solely dream of.
Nonetheless, this wealth additionally introduced issues. The stress to take care of such a profitable recreation was monumental.
There was no escape for the younger developer: Ha Dong was besieged by followers, acquired quite a few messages and calls, and his life was scrutinized by prying eyes.
As the sport gained worldwide notoriety, the Vietnamese press additionally caught wind of it and besieged his home virtually across the clock.
The success of the sport had created an actual hype that was uncontrolled.
As well as, there have been quite a few accusationsthrown in Ha Dong’s route. From dad and mom blaming him for his or her kids’s Flappy Chook habit, to journalists and builders accusing him of asset theft (The inexperienced tubes might have come straight out of Tremendous Mario).
Ultimately, Dong might now not stand up to the stress. He determined to take away Flappy Chook from the app shops, which led to an outcry within the gaming neighborhood.
I’m sorry ‘Flappy Chook’ customers, 22 hours from now, I’ll take ‘Flappy Chook’ down. I can’t take this anymore.
– Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014
The primary touch upon this tweet with over 800 likes got here from a person saying “a LOT of individuals would kill to have such success you ungrateful piece of s***” Such feedback weren’t unusual, sadly.
For Ha Dong, eradicating the sport was the one method out to regain his privateness and relieve the stress.
The sport was by no means meant to be addictive: He additionally admitted that he felt responsible as a result of he believed his recreation was too addictive and robbed folks of their time. In an interview with Forbes, the indie developer mentioned that Flappy Chook was meant to be a calming recreation for in-between instances – to not get gamers hooked.
“It has turn out to be an issue, “ mentioned Ha Dong.
What’s the Flappy Chook developer doing at present?
After taking Flappy Chook offline, Nguyen Ha Dong tried to get his life again on observe. He withdrew from the general public eye and centered on growing video games that attracted much less consideration.
Dong has since launched just a few extra video games, comparable to Swing Copters and Ninja Spinki Challenges, however none of them achieved the identical hype as Flappy Chook. He tried to stay a standard life, away from the extreme consideration he acquired earlier than. Whether or not he’ll ever create such a profitable recreation once more stays to be seen – or perhaps he doesn’t need to.
The story of Flappy Chook reveals that success isn’t all the time what you dream of, and that fame brings its personal challenges.
Do you perceive Ha Dong’s choice? How would you may have acted in his place? Ought to Ha Dong have left the sport on-line or was eradicating it the one and proper choice? And have you ever performed Flappy Chook your self previously and even identified individuals who have been hooked on the sport? Write us your opinion and experiences within the feedback!
