Flappy Bird enjoyed a meteoric rise to both iOS and Android super stardom, reportedly earning its creator, Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen, $50,000 a day in ad revenue. The game was installed over ten million times in less than two weeks and instantly generated a rabid following practically as passionate as Star Wars fans. Freeze dried fan, just add flap. The game's popularity, however, caused so many issues for its creator, that he removed the game from both Apple and Android's app stores. Never fear though, we have the APK below.
I can call 'Flappy Bird' is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014
The life span of the game, which strangely mirrored the experience of the game itself, is over. It came, we obsessed, we laughed, we cried, we uninstalled, we reinstalled. And then the honeymoon ended. As Marques Brownlee stated in response to its removal: 'Global productivity up 800%'. Perhaps Flappy Bird was only ever going to be popular for a short time: a flash in the pan, a flap of a Hummingbird's wings. But its legacy will carry on in the dozens of clones it spawned, the internet furore over its impact and removal, and the fascinating awareness of what I will forever now call the Flappy Bird Effect.