It’s game over for “Flappy Bird”

黃雅靖

導讀：該游戲作者Dong Nguye隨著“Flappy Bird”的莫名走紅開始廣為人知，而這名程序員在面對每天至少5萬美元的廣告收入和大大的名氣前，卻出人意料地將游戲在APP和安卓市場下架。

Less than a year after it first came out， the creator of the popular “Flappy Bird” （飛揚的小鳥）game has taken it down from iTunes App Store（蘋果應用商店）and Google Play（谷歌應用商店）.

“Flappy Bird” first became available in the iTunes App Store in May 2013 but it becomes much more popular early this year once it became available for downloading on Android devices.

The simple game involves tapping the screen to make a bird fly through a series of tubes of different heights. It sounds easier than it is， and thats a part of the reason why it became so popular！

It was downloaded more than 50 million times and it is believed that its creator Dong Nguyen， an game developer from Vietnam， made up to $50，000 a day from it， but the success was too much for him and finally led him to take it down.

Why？ “I can call ‘Flappy Bird a success of mine. But it also destroys my simple life. So now I hate it，” Nguyen said on Saturday. Shortly after he said， “I am sorry， ‘Flappy Bird users. 22 hours from now， I will take ‘Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this any more.”

Many dont understand why Nguyen took the game down. Yes， he was receiving a lot of attention but he was also very successful， making a lot of money， and building a very large customer base.

Fans are not happy but have found how to make the most of their loss by selling phones with the game. Thousands of people have turned to eBay to make some money with their “Flappy Bird”-phones. The most expensive listing is now priced at a surprsing $135，000， and people have actually wanted to buy it！

Vocabulary

download v. 下載

tap v. 點擊

tube n. 管子

（Dear， did you get to download “Flappy Bird” while it was still available？ Why do you think some people are willing to pay so much money for a game？）