An open letter to Dong Nguyen, creator of Flappy Bird | Hacker News Reader

An open letter to Dong Nguyen, creator of Flappy Bird

techinasia.com

This article is weirdly condescending. "Buck up and keep coding, little feller!"

Almost every time something is labeled as "an open letter", you can be sure it's going to be condescending self righteous egotistical BS.

Really? Why do you think that is? Do you have some examples?

"An open letter" is used when you've decided that you're really important and everyone really needs to read your opinion.

I didn't read it that way, I read it as encouragement.

An open letter comparing him to Dave Chapelle is probably not a good plan, given his statement:

Press people are overrating the success of my games. It is something I never want. Please give me peace.

This letter misses that Dave Chappelle had serious concerns about the cultural impact of his work. He feared that actual racists were laughing at his racial humor that was rooted in a critique of the racism he experienced in his life. Chappelle's break down was much more than feeling over burdened by attention. The flappy bird dev just seems to be upset that he put something out into the world & people are responding to it.

Everyone is assuming they have any idea that they know what Dong's real problem is. He put out a few tweets. A few clues (at best). Ultimately we have know idea what kind of mental (or other) anguish this attention, money, and fame is causing him.

Don't try to encourage him to do something he clearly doesn't want to do unless you know what you are truly asking of him.

Does anyone really grasp what it must be like to become somewhat famous or rich overnight in a poor country? The amount of attention (normally bad) must be horrible. What if the platforms that made this game possible to help a developer make their success more manageable?

I think it's a little different in that Dave Chappelle was on TV and people knew him because they saw him. Dong Nguyen is a developer and while he will still be famous it will be among a much smaller community (in my opinion).

Dong Nguyen as a developer might be a smaller name but I guarantee you the ability to put "from the developer of Flappy Bird" is going to have similar effects to being TV famous.

Of course they want to keep him around, that's the only way those tech-news get any attention.

This one in particular being in Asia means a lot of $$ for techninasia - not that they effectivly give a shit about the product itself, but that it puts eyes and attention to them and their spastic gossipy website.

You have put yourself out there and published a game. The fame, money and problems come along with that naturally. If you learn to deal with it now, you might be more successful in the future, but if you back off now there is not chance of progress.

You assume this "progress" is desirable. Maybe the guy would prefer to take his app store millions and retire in peace. :P

His twitter comments would disagree with that.

He won the lottery. He didn't develop something meaningful. That must be rough. Imagine if you hacked together a "hello world" program, and it made you a millionaire. Wouldn't that kinda suck?

I don't think the helloworld analogy is correct. The game is simple but not trivial. .

Intentionally or not, he made something that most millions of people enjoy, to me that seems to be a pretty good accomplishment.

Even so, there's a point of fame/money/success beyond which most people are uncomfortable.

Look at lottery winners. I would certainly not want to win the lottery, because most winners end up having a terrible life.

Also, lots of people enjoy shooting things, but being the inventor of the gun must have been a pretty heavy burden. Just because something is enjoyable, doesn't necessarily mean it's "good" overall...

This situation reminds me a little of Notch.

Maybe we should have a meetup for introverted nerds who have become wildly successful but have not found happiness with their success? When the event happens we can turn off all the lights and talk in the dark.

I think it seems like Notch enjoys his fame because it has allowed him to focus on his own projects, and work with great people.

By making Flappy Bird down , he is making his game a "Legend" by stopping at the top of fame.(the virality will go down soon or late with no new versions)

About Branding and Video Game History,it is a really smart move.

Why can't people just accept his decision? Let him do whatever he wants.

What's the deal with this game anyway? It's nothing new, I was playing games based on exactly the same, pretty popular idea, years ago. What's all the fuss about?

Maybe he loves programming just for the sake of programming, not for sake of earning money. Not all of us want to corrupt our souls.

If that were the case, I can't help thinking he could have released the app without the ads, or at least pushed out an update removing the ads at this point, instead of removing it. I don't think this is about money.

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