Don't turn down millions of dollars because people are doing what people do! Someone remind him of all the folks who have downloaded his game and stopped playing nearly immediately...,
I know that people can have strangely fragile egos but the idea of being upset for being known for something, no matter how benign, is completely foreign to me.
I assure you it has nothing to do with embarrassment. It's unfortunate, but speech often has very serious consequences.
I'm talking about the potential for real life harassment (folks calling my employer, showing up at my house, swatting, etc) if I were to say something controversial. I am specifically concerned with being doxxed and criminal harassment.
There's a vast world of difference between people making comments in poor taste over a game and the level people sometimes go to if they engage in an argument and lose in an embarrassing way. I would not recommend that anyone freely engage in internet debates in a non-anonymous fashion.
If he lives in Vietnam, one day would set him up for the rest of his life.
Regardless of what he builds, what industry he is in, there will always be people there to criticize. Why throw away opportunity that most people wish they had due to something that will occur regardless of the revenue?
Being a martyr only works in certain circumstances. This is not one of them.
If you look at mobile game development, it's not a bad bet to guess that he won't. It's a big ol' dart board.
Problem solved, get back to your passion.
There is literally nothing coming back from it other than waiting for the hype to die out. And that's what Nguyen is trying to do. Trust me, I'm talking from experience here.
Where is he turning his back on his passion? It doesn't sound like the way people are responding to Flappy Bird are the embodiment of his passion he wants. And his passion is in game dev, not an oddly specific passion for riding only the Flappy Bird app to success. Taking it down doesn't mean he can't build different games.
I also reject the idea that it was because of the money alone that he is taking the app down. Money wasn't the only byproduct of the success. Far be it for me to make assumptions, but it may be the "ruins my simple life" levels of baggage that came with the success of Flappy Bird.
My post was attempting to point out that he may have priorities in addition to profit, not that he is anti-money. If you meant to respond to the guy that is actually saying that the money alone could be the problem, perhaps you should move your post.
one passion of many. he was passionate about Flappy Bird, and he is now removing it from the app store all together.
>> I also reject the idea that it was because of the money alone that he is taking the app down.
fair enough and i agree. i really just mean that generally, there are not very many good reasons to outright reject this kind of money.
I think people here were assuming that his passion was entrepreneurship through game-dev. Because, you know, HN, entrepreneurs, etc. (But also because he did both things in order to ship this game, so it's just as probable he liked doing both of them. He could have given the game away for free, if he thought entrepreneurship was a hassle or something.)
There is literally nothing coming back from it other than waiting for the hype to die out. And that's what Nguyen is trying to do. Trust me, I'm talking from experience here.
I guess I might be in the minority here, since most people on HN are trying to become the next Mark Zuckerberg with their startups. Maybe they like that kind of attention. However, I, Dong Nguyen, and many people like us do not like that kind of attention. You don't know who your real friends are, and as he put it, it "interrupts my quiet life".
Basically, you're suggesting that an equilibrium of (1 person-hour stolen by addiction : 1 person-hour of ad impressions given to charity) should be replaced with (1 person-hour stolen by addiction [just to some other game] : 0 person-hours of ad impressions given to charity). Note that there is no "0 person-hours stolen by addiction" option.
Note: I'm not saying Flappy Bird is like meth, but just pointing out your logic.