Flappy Bird dev makes $50,000/day from the collective frustration of 50 million people

Let the games begin! Sorry, not those games, I am talking about the free to play indie smash hit, Flappy Bird, that is reportedly pulling in over $50,000 per day from in-app advertisements. Game developer Dong Nguyen of .GEARS Studios says that he chose the ad-supported, free to play app style because that is what is popular in Japan right now.

The success of Flappy Bird is a ray of hope for other individual and low budget game developers, as Nguyen built the game in his free time in the evenings. He says he was never looking to become famous or popular, even posting a request on Twitter to kindly be left alone. One quick glance proves that he designed Flappy Bird drawing inspiration from one of his favorite games series growing up, Super Mario. The nostalgia factor is not lost on users, although a significant number of game reviews in the Play Store are very frustrated by the main character’s lips – vehemently pointing out that birds don’t have lips, and that they are large enough to act as airbags in the event of a collision with, say, a large green pipe.

The overwhelming response to this game is that it is frustratingly difficult – drive over your phone with a tank, then throw it into a volcano frustratingly difficult – yet somehow extremely addictive. Not that the actual controls are difficult; simply click to fly up and release to drop back down, with the difficulty in avoiding crashing into obstacles. I read through a bunch of reviews and the number one word used was ‘though.’ Many of the over 208,000 5 star reviews read something like “It ruined my life because I couldn’t put it down, couldn’t beat my previous/friend’s high score… but it’s a good game though.”

Check it out for yourself – download Flappy Bird from the Google Play Store.

Are you one of the 50 million people that have lost themselves to this addictive game? The real question – what is your high score?