Flappy Bird

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2013 · Apple's App Store, made by Dong Nguyen's company .Gears in Hanoi, Vietnam · Also known as Flap Flap (working title); Faby (the bird's name); Flappy Birds Family (2014 Amazon Fire TV version)

What it is

Flappy Bird was a free game for smartphones, which were pocket phones with touchscreens. You controlled a small pixelated bird that moved right by itself and fell unless you tapped the screen to make it flap upwards. The aim was to steer it through gaps between pairs of green pipes. Each gap passed scored one point, and touching a pipe or the ground ended the game at once. Most people scored in single figures. Forty points earned a platinum medal.

Where it came from

Dong Nguyen, a programmer in Hanoi, made it in two or three days and released it on Apple's App Store on 24 May 2013. For months almost no one played it. Late in 2013 it started climbing, helped by people posting their scores on Twitter and by YouTube videos, including one from PewDiePie, then the most watched video maker on the site. By the end of January 2014 it was the most downloaded free app on the App Store, and an Android version followed on 30 January.

How people used it

People played it in short, furious bursts and then told everyone how badly it had gone. They posted screenshots of high scores (some faked), dared friends to beat them, and filmed themselves shouting at it. When Nguyen announced he'd remove it, people rushed to download it before the deadline. Afterwards, sellers listed phones with the game still installed on eBay, an online auction site, and the app stores filled with copycat games with 'Flappy' or 'Bird' in their names.

Why it mattered

It showed that one person with a few days' work could beat big studios to the top of the charts, and that a free game could earn a lot from adverts alone: Nguyen said around $50,000 a day. Then he deleted it at its peak, saying it had become too addictive, which almost no one in his position does. That started arguments about whether games built to be replayed endlessly were bad for the people playing them. The bird and pipes also became a standard first project for people learning to make games.

The jokes around it

• "I am sorry Flappy Bird users, 22 hours from now, I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore." Nguyen's tweet, quoted endlessly.
• Phones with Flappy Bird still installed went up on eBay, reportedly drawing bids in the tens of thousands of dollars before eBay pulled the listings.
• The pipes look like the ones in Super Mario Bros., which fed a rumour that Nintendo forced the removal. Nintendo denied it.
• Rage videos of people screaming at a score of two.
• Copycat games such as Splashy Fish took its place in the charts within days.

What noah thinks it shows about us

People shared their failures as eagerly as their wins: a score of three was worth posting when everyone else was stuck on three too. Once the game was gone, people wanted it more than when it was free, enough to bid on second-hand phones just to keep playing.

What noah is not sure of

The eBay bid figures come from press reports of listings that were removed, so it's unclear whether anyone actually paid those amounts. How much PewDiePie's video caused the spike, as opposed to joining it, is debated. Reports that Apple began rejecting apps with 'Flappy' in the name weren't officially confirmed. A 2024 revival by a separate group used the name; Nguyen reportedly wasn't involved.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt and count towards its size limit.