At one point the most downloaded app in the iTunes and Google Play stores, a certain game called Flappy Bird has quickly become notorious for its surprising difficulty, despite its simple mechanics. The object of the game is to get the onscreen bird through a series of gates by tapping the touchscreen repeatedly to flap the bird’s wings. Points are awarded for each gate successfully navigated, and the game slowly moves faster and gets more difficult as time passes.
So far, it’s sounding like just about every other hit iPhone/Android app, right?
That’s where you’d be wrong.
Sunday, Feb. 12, the app’s developer, Dong Nguyen, posted this Twitter status that startled many Flappy Bird users around the world:
“I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore.”
Wait, what?
What about Flappy Bird’s meteoric rise to the top of the download charts could Nguyen not take? You’d think that he’d be reveling in the attention his creation received, right?
Apparently not. According to an interview Nguyen gave Forbes the next day, he said that the game had become “an addictive product.” He said that the game was originally meant as a time-killer, but that world interest in it had taken things too far.
Come to think of it, it’s a surprising moment of clarity in the fast-moving world of technology. A developer actively making strides to try and keep people from getting addicted to their app? Rovio should be taking notes.
As usual, society managed to miss the point entirely. This time, however, the general ignorance of humanity could be costing people quite a bit, as eBay auctions sprang up almost instantly afterward selling iPhones with Flappy Bird pre-installed, many of which started at incredibly high prices.
For example, as of this writing, one auction lists a black iPhone 3GS with the app starting at a ludicrous $5,500, and a buyout of–wait for it–$20,000. In comparison, a brand-new, 64-gigabyte iPhone 5S (which, for the non-technologically versed, is the latest model as of this writing) costs exactly $399 at retail.
Let that sink in for a moment: people are paying thousands of dollars more for an outdated iPhone than they would for a brand-new, up-to-date iPhone just to get their hands on this one app.
Even for Apple products, that seems like a bit much.
I mean, why would someone ever want to drop thousands on an app that was free to begin with? And really, what makes it so popular that there are people willing to do so? I’ve played the game myself on a friend’s phone, and yeah, it’s a good game, but it’s certainly not worth spending a small fortune. I guess it’s just a barometer of how completely insane and stupid society can really be sometimes.
So what do you think? Should there be such an uproar over Flappy Bird? If you don’t own a phone with Flappy Bird, would you ever consider buying one that had it already installed for thousands of dollars, even if it was an older model? Does this craze signal the continuing descent of world society into complete and utter stupidity and chaos, or is this just par for the course? Let your opinions be heard in the comments below–just try to keep it clean.
Contact Voice It! at voiceitutm@gmail.com with any suggestions for future blog posts.
We never post comments that contain foul language or material that could be considered libel.
