Flappy Bird to take flight once again after facing turbulence

On Feb. 9, at about 9 a.m., the plague that had caused frustration, sadness and anguish for millions was removed.

This plague, known as Flappy Bird, earned indie game developer Dong Nguyen up to $50,000 a day from game ads with millions making up its player base.

Nguyen was simply pursuing a coding hobby when he created a small project, expecting to make a few hundred dollars per month. However, when he released the game on May 24 last year, he realized that he was mistaken. After eight months, his game skyrocketed to the No. 1 ranking on Apple’s App Store.

Critics accused Nguyen of boosting his game’s rating with bots, accounts that are created in mass numbers. Disgruntled users had attacked him online, expressing how the game ruined their lives.

Nguyen received messages from workers who allegedly lost their jobs over the game and a mother who stopped talking to her kids.

Nguyen was even faced with death threats and tweets telling him to commit suicide. Initially, he believed that the messages were jokes, but he remembered his poor academic performance in school due to the time he invested in playing “Counter Strike,” a game, and he felt the messages were serious.

The guilt impeded his sleep, and on on Feb. 8 Nguyen tweeted Flappy Bird would be taken down in 22 hours.

“It is ruining my simple life,” he said.

Upon hearing the news, millions of smartphone users rushed to get a copy of Flappy Bird before it was taken down.

Since then, Nguyen has kept a low profile, avoiding numerous interview offers.

However, Nguyen tweeted March 19 that he would be bringing the game back, “but not soon.” He decided that he would not bring back the original Flappy Bird, but create a better version of it, since Apple states that once an app is deleted, it cannot be put back on the App Store with the same name.

Since the game had become a digital drug, Nguyen does not want anyone to get too hooked. He told Rolling Stone that he will include a warning in the new version advising the player to “please take a break.”