Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out • Hacker News Board

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#81

Post by MarkTee » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #19

Ah dangit, another famous Nguyen (along with Dat Nguyen) who I'll be asked if I'm related to. It's especially interesting and cool that he's still in Vietnam, and I'm not surprised that was a heavy factor in just waking away...$50,000 a day, even a year , is a lot of money. My uncle was making less than that (a year) in Saigon and yet could still afford to rent a massive house with courtyard, 2 servants and a nanny,…

Ha, when I was a kid there was a criminal in my city named Nguyen Thanh (I think he might have been on the run or wanted for a warrant or something). One day I was playing an online game and saw somebody who had "nguyenthanh" as their username. I freaked out and ran to my dad, excited to tell him that I'd cracked the case. Much to my dismay he explained to me that those were 2 of the most common names in Vietnam.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#82

Post by DanBC » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:09 PM UTC

Is there a cultural bias in the HN comments?

Some of the asian social networks are ferocious, much worse than the twitter witch hunts we sometimes see in the US.

The Human flesh search engine doesn't sound like something I'd want to be on the wrong end of.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#83

Post by pgrote » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

stevejohnson wrote: post #74

Does anyone have the source for the Romero quote on the third page? John Romero, co-creator of the game Doom, says Flappy Bird is "a reaction against prevailing design the way grunge was a reaction to metal."

Odd. I cannot find a source for it on Google, twitter, his personal site or facebook.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#84

Post by dTal » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

applecore wrote: post #44

Unfortunately, by removing Flappy Bird from the App Store, he opened the door for shitty clones to reach the top of the charts. This arguably made the lives of users worse. He also passed up the opportunity to make millions of more dollars in merchandising.

Flappy Bird is itself a shitty clone - an imperfect copy of it runs even odds of being a better game.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#85

Post by petemc_ » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

mark212 wrote: post #21

legohead wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or he spent money on buying votes for his game and rather than deal with a ToS breach and lose his money, he took it off the market.

I'm not so sure. It would have to use iAd on iOS to do display ads, and Apple would yank that access with a breach of the terms of service. I doubt he's still getting "tens of thousands" of dollars from ad revenue in Android alone.

I never saw any ads when I played it on android.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#86

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:16 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #60

bsenftner wrote: post #25

As a long term developer of entertainment software, I totally agree with his point of view about the impact one's software has upon the lives of the user. The general acceptance goes that the crazies and depressed will be triggered by something and its not your fault if something provocative you worked on triggers an incident. That's what the group think tells us, but in ones personal reality it's not that easy to sh…

I totally disagree with his point of view. He could simply sell the game to an established company that is already set up to handle the responsibilities that come with running a business. Throwing away $50k/day is just a stupid thing to do.

[deleted]

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#87

Post by Destitute » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:19 PM UTC

Does anyone know what language he coded the game in? It's kind of a feat in itself that he ported it (by himself) to Android rather quickly. Is he using some sort of wrapper?

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#88

Post by Iftheshoefits » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:22 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #60

bsenftner wrote: post #25

As a long term developer of entertainment software, I totally agree with his point of view about the impact one's software has upon the lives of the user. The general acceptance goes that the crazies and depressed will be triggered by something and its not your fault if something provocative you worked on triggers an incident. That's what the group think tells us, but in ones personal reality it's not that easy to sh…

I totally disagree with his point of view. He could simply sell the game to an established company that is already set up to handle the responsibilities that come with running a business. Throwing away $50k/day is just a stupid thing to do.

Depending upon one's starting debt load, any person of average intelligence or better would be able to, after a few days to a couple of weeks of that income, "retire" to a lower stress job, or even have the freedom to work for oneself in a less public arena.

In the US, $350,000 (1 week @$50k/day average) works out to somewhere north of $200,000 after taxes. That's a lot of money, even if it's not life changing for somebody in the tech industry with a typical salaried job in the Bay Area.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#89

Post by SyneRyder » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:24 PM UTC

acchow wrote: post #16

trevoragilbert wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think to myself that I definitely wouldn't have, and that I would have weather the storm of the press outside my house, and just focused on that great payday (everyday). But from what I've heard, the paparazzi changes everything and it really is life-changing. So hard to say either way.

A software developer/entrepreneur is not a rock star. The paparazzi will disappear and the game be forgotten in a few weeks.

And yet, here we are a few weeks later, and he's in Rolling Stone magazine. The game hasn't been forgotten. He had the #1 game on the iTunes App Store charts, the same store where people now buy music by rock stars. I wouldn't dismiss the comparison too quickly.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#90

Post by theorique » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 9:30 PM UTC

United857 wrote: post #57

Another plausible reason that I've not seen reported is that if he was indeed pulling in $50k/day, that makes you a target in Vietnam (average monthly salary $185). In that part of the world, being rich without having the right connections/protection can be very, very dangerous.

The scale of wealth is so different, wouldn't he be able to purchase protection?

Granted, it would involve a radical lifestyle transformation that might be unpleasant and jarring, but it seems like he already got exposed to that by getting internet famous. Might as well enjoy the money.