Why Indie Developers Go Insane →
Jeff Vogel on what it’s like to put yourself out there, and what happened to Flappy Bird:
Dong Nguyen quit. A fortune coming through the door, and he walked away. …
Think about this. I mean you, personally. Think about what it would take to make you run from a gold mine like this. Really. Think about why someone would do this.
This is not about money.
Bingo.
Flappy Bird’s success was hilarious, but it also appears to be completely earned. I’ve read the posts suggesting he cheated at the ranks or reviews, but I haven’t seen any that supported those claims enough. Some guy in Vietnam made a primitive, crude, completely unoriginal game with cute, equally unoriginal artwork that was charming in its shittiness, frustratingly difficult, and inexplicably addictive.
A charming, comically shitty, addictive, accessible yet difficult, very casual, very quick to play, completely free game with no manipulative in-app purchases? Of course it succeeded in the App Store, fair and square.
Then so many people brutally harassed and abused the developer that he couldn’t take it anymore and deleted the number one app in the App Store in an attempt to do anything to make the abuse stop.
Flappy Bird was a cultural tragedy, and the tragedy has nothing to do with the game.