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Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

rollingstone.com

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Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#131

Post by wpietri »

Ryel wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss that this was an interview?

I only know he is still alive because I've followed the Flappy Bird story. I just shared this story with 3 people who only know OF him, all 3 of them replied with their condolences and then we found consolation in his humor about CounterStrike. As a reporter I would think there should be some importance in leaving zero room for misintepretation regarding somebody's well-being. Is that wrong?

Huh. Maybe I know too much about journalism. But something titled "Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out" tells me that it's an interview with a person... speaking out. In the flesh and everything.

The reporter talking about going to meet him, and how that Nguyen has agreed to share his story with Rolling Stone for the first time. It ends with Nguyen saying (present tense) that he's good now and talking about what he'll do in the future.

I just don't see how somebody could read this story other than as an interview with a living person.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#132

Post by nols »

pfisch wrote: post #9

I heard it was just a reskin of a premade game he got off an asset store. Is that not the case? This article made it sound like it was an original idea, but I thought it was just that one button to go up, no button to go down flash game. Is that not what it is?

No, I believe you're thinking of the current knock-offs that are top apps. Those are created from source code found on Chupamobile.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#133

Post by vacri »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #76
Blahah wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others might say chasing $50k/day is a stupid thing to do. With enough money to live off, plenty of people seek happiness elsewhere.

Yes but let's be clear, he was making $50k/day with no effort of his own besides the work he did last year. There was no chase or action to give up, so his motives lied elsewhere.

Let's be clearer: he has the money he needs to live comfortably. For some people, that's all the money they need. "But you could have even more if you gave it to an agency!" Yes, but a) that means negotiating with an agency (which includes /finding/ one) and jumping through a bunch of hoops, and b) still having to deal with being a 'maverick personality' on the internet.

Or you could just take the Bill Watterson route, shut up shop, and live the rest of your life comfortably and in private.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#134

Post by wpietri »

Ryel wrote: post #50
Jtsummers wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you include the next few sentences it's clear that there was no suicide: In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread. Nguyen had committed suicide. Nintendo was suing him. He'd received death threats. His refusal to speak fueled the speculation even more. It's a list of the rumors that were going around, and is terminated by a statement about his refusal to speak (at the time) which strongly implies that th…

I see the flow you're talking about but IMO that second sentence is just too big and too bold. The paragraph seems to drop that bomb, inch away and then come back to discredit it rather than just spitting it out like, "rumors begun to spread that Dong had..." Anyway, no sense in nit-picking but I would like to see a couple words rearranged. I really think he's a good guy and he seems to be someone worthy of the indus…

Ah, I see what you're concerned about. The implied structure there is something like:

    In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread:
    Nguyen had committed suicide; Nintendo was suing
    him; he'd received death threats. His refusal to
    speak fueled the speculation even more.
But their approach has more literary force, so I think what they did was a reasonable author's choice, not an editing error.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#135

Post by asharpe »

mesuvash wrote: post #54

Nothing but #respect. It's hard to see people who give up fortune for what they consider right thing(atleast from his perspective).

yes, especially as he doesn't want to sell it and let someone else deal with the crap. Shame that people want to cut down others who are successful

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#136

Post by mrb »

"Nguyen was earning an estimated $50,000 a day. Not even Mark Zuckerberg became rich so fast."

False. Zuckerberg became rich faster. Facebook was founded in February 2004. As of February 2014 Zuckerberg's personal wealth is estimated at $31.6 billion. So, during these 10 years, his wealth increased on average by $8.7 million per day.

But I guess the point is moot anyway since RollingStone is comparing apples to oranges (earning != wealth).

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#137

Post by HNaTTY »

This was an interesting writeup, but I can't help but think that removing Flappy Bird at the height of popularity was anything less than the shrewdest of PR moves. He continues to get all the ad dollars from existing installs, and has achieved legendary status, assuring that any new games he may release get a lot of coverage and positioning him at the top of the heap. It's really genius!

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#138

Post by drawkbox »

_alastair wrote: post #93
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.

At least it's given the world a new alternative to 'a to-do list' in demonstrating new technologies/languages/etc. There are ones for various different gaming frameworks: https://github.com/uralozden/flappy-bird https://github.com/ellisonleao/clumsy-bird The ZX-81: http://bobs-stuff.co.uk/quack.html and so on. To my shame, I made a version that you play by flapping your arms: http://experimenting.alastair.is/flappyar…

Flappy Arms, nice one, might be fun on Kinect as well. Flappy Bird has become an experimentational platform of its own.

Re: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out

#139

Post by minikites »

antirez wrote: post #120
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…

To be fair, seen from outside, this seems something strange and, in my opinion, not good about the American culture: there is always somebody to blame for your problem, a reason why you are acting in a given way, an external cause if you suffer a medical problem, eat too much, put all the kind of pills in your body, and so forth. Probably this is representative only of a minority, but from the outside this looks like…

> Example: a violent game can be a way to express violence of an otherwise repressed person, or some other people that is having a few bad weeks, is finding an escape playing at it.

Yeah, that's not actually true. "Letting your anger out" makes you angrier.

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/08/11/catharsis/

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