Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out
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Also, when you're at the business end of a press blitz, you get overwhelmed and can make irrational decisions that you might come to regret.
Sure, there was plenty of praise, too. But the harassment eventually became annoying. It hit it's breaking point when someone folks managed to figure out my cell phone number and would call me at all sorts of hours (3am once!) to "tell me about their ideas."
I changed my cell number but it eventually happened again.
Most of my interactions with users were positive, though. But, the various legal issues, hateful folks, and my day job suddenly taking more time I decided to give it up and pass it on to someone else. I had already become mostly observational/maintenance on the project in my last year there anyways.
Slight digressions aside, I was fairly young when I got with the project and it was surprisingly to me how angry some people could be for no reason at all.
For example "don't leave money on the table" or "make as much money as possible" could easily be a principle someone adopts. In such a case, she would be standing up for her principles by maximizing her acquisition of money at the expense of other things.
Example: The asbestos industry officials knew of asbestos dangers of asbestos since the 1930s and had purposefully concealed them from the public. To make money.
Or you could just take the Bill Watterson route, shut up shop, and live the rest of your life comfortably and in private.
That's the Workaholic Test™ -- if you make a million dollars, do you drop everything and sit on a beach somewhere reading a worthwhile novel, or do you move the goal posts and carry on toward a new, less realistic goal?
Most people won't make a million dollars, so most people will never know whether they're workaholics.
With that premise, selling to an established company would have been the most irresponsible thing he could do. After all, the biggest assets of the game are its large user base, the media hype and just that "addictiveness". So this would probably be the first thing any buyer would have exploited, making Dong's problem worse instead of better.
In the US, $350,000 (1 week @$50k/day average) works out to somewhere north of $200,000 after taxes. That's a lot of money, even if it's not life changing for somebody in the tech industry with a typical salaried job in the Bay Area.
I would have done the same thing if I was in his shoes; just get out of the spotlight with whatever money I already made(and still making from previous-installs). Getting paid 50k, even just once, for a mobile game I wrote over a weekend is more than enough. I wouldn't care how many millions I left at the table by dropping it and running away.
I'd just upload it to github, throw on WTFPL[1], and run away never to be seen again.
1. He's still earning ad revenue from existing installs.
2. In the last 22 hours of the app's existence (when he announced
he would be taking it down) more than 10 million new people
installed it.
I'm sure everything he says is true and it is not a conscious strategy, but the end result is the same.
If you did that for a month, that would be the Vietnam purchasing equivalent of maybe about $33,000,000. He still has income coming in from the game, it hasn't stopped. He has enough money to retire and live a nice life in Vietnam.
For many people (myself included) enough is enough! He made enough and now he wants to get back to his quiet simple life. That is what he values, not an endless quest for more money. He felt the game was destroying his life. I don't blame him, I wouldn't want that kind of attention either.
Some people can just be happy with what they have.
[1]http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/vietnam-average-monthl...
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...
The Internet not only has increased the range of hateful groupthink, it has made a large number of people believe that it is somehow noble and elevated. It almost seems like there's an anti-intelligentsia of forum manipulators who see the creation of new and pointless forms of prejudice as a kind of sport.
I have the growing impression that there's a growing segment of people online who see their outrage and any acts motivated by it as the expression of some kind of enlightened vigilante justice. It just so happens that the worst crimes against humanity were motivated by people who thought just like that. Unfortunately, it's the single best way to blind yourself against your own evil deeds while making it likely you'll get trapped into irrevocable courses of action.
People haven't changed. There have always been trolls, malcontents, crazies. Attend any public hearing, ask any fan club or newspaper mail room.
As a new medium, the distinction of the web is significantly lowered transaction costs. No different from email spammers.
Yes, but now the seductive idea that one can improve the world by getting one's teenage hormonal aggression out on somebody "who deserves it" is beamed into people's living rooms and onto devices in their pocket, complete with calls to action. How many teenagers do you know who realize how morally bankrupt this is, vs the number of teenagers who are actively enthusiastic about some idea like this?
And, how many people do you know who are past their teens who still haven't "gotten it" yet?
Also, it's an unwarranted assumption that teenage aggression is only held onto by teenagers.
You're probably just emotionally invested in memes and feel hurt when I point out they implicitly espouse shallow and prejudicial positions.
Or in other words, there's a world of harm that can be done by putting a huge number of these malcontents in contact with each other in a way that they can all cooperate, with laser focus on a single subject.
Probably this is representative only of a minority, but from the outside this looks like a vocal minority, and even a very small minority, if can feel offended, or addicted, or something else because of your work, can easily turn your work into a nightmare.
Now the thing is: it is not true. You, with your work, are not forcing anyone. We live in a world full of possibilities, the problem here is, to be able to critically analyze what you do, otherwise there is no thing that can save you, you'll misuse even the simpler things to cause yourself some kind of problems.
There is more, even controversial things have some very good impact on the life of people making judicious use of those things. 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. Similarly alcool, that if abused can be bad, addicting, and destroy people, is the joy of many people having a glass of wine from time to time, and so forth.
Most of the times the problem is not the tool but the user.
Not a "just how Americans think" issue, a "what is relevant to our readers' lives" issue.
That's absolutely not the case in other places of the world. In some cases, even the opposite problem arises (that is, discriminating against your own country/culture and favouring a foreign one)
(To note, the article wasn't about American culture, it was a personal interest piece on a person who was unprepared for the effects of the success he experienced.)
If by "other places in the world" you mean areas that are small enough or have an ephemeral-enough regional identity to have developed strong codependent identities with other regions, then I would certainly agree.
Living in a number of places has shown me that, in larger countries/communities with defined identities, internally facing publications will publish stories that are strongly relevant to their reader.
Because, as I said, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to spend that sort of space on an article that wasn't relevant to the reader.
Cultural diversity (and exceptionalism, etc) is all rolled into the DNA of the country.
I think you can see it at different levels even on the other side of the medal. I think customer care Americans experience is stellare compared to Europe on average, because Europeans hardly will blame enough the service supplier even when it is the case and this would result in raising the level of service. Apple was one of the first companies to provide US customer service here and at first I and my friends were pretty surprised that this was possible at all.
As with everything I guess this is just a bias and everywhere there are people of all the kinds, but because of culture there are some biases. Like, sicilians can be the most honest often, but surely on average my island exhibits a bias for not being able to stay in line, park the car where it is not possible and so forth. Basically I'm not generalizing.
But I would agree that the concept that something you do is someone else's fault is wrong. If anything, accepting that idea leads to daft warning messages on everything, eg. mats on the Land Rover Freelander dashboard for putting stuff with massive warnings reading "Don't put hot drinks here!". It is obvious, but they felt the need to put it there in case someone blamed them for their action of putting a roasting hot drink there and then accelerating swiftly. It's silly.
I had a professor visiting from the U.S. and he was absolutely in love with the culture in Europe - how we sort of accept more responsibility.
He told me he would choose building a business in europe vs. the U.S. every single time. He has been sued several times for the most ridiculous things that never would have held any ground over here.
That, he said, was the single best thing about Europe's business culture. Not sure if I agree with that, but he has a point.
funny addendum: he was surprised at the lack of disclaimers on products here. Go figure.
While like European way better, it is not fair to compare lawsuits prevalence in isolation. You have to compare the combination of lawsuits and regulations to say which system is better. And Europe has more regulations about a lot of things.
Yeah, that's not actually true. "Letting your anger out" makes you angrier.
or some other people that is having a few bad weeks, is finding an escape playing at it.
Why? Because if anger becomes socially acceptable, you're more likely to express it. However, saying everyone should bottle it up is trying to take an extreme and apply it to everyone.
Anger is an emotional response to a situation, much like depression. If you don't change your situation, you will become angrier or more depressed. If this "venting" makes someone feel better, and prolongs their stay in this bad situation, then of course they're going to get angrier.
This is like someone who's depressed because they're in an abusive relationship taking antidepressants rather than leaving the relationship. You're treating symptoms, not dealing with causes.
So suppressing that anger is going to promote you to resolve the situation rather than tolerate it.
I'll point out that you're linking to a blog post and not a peer reviewed study, so the actual merit is zip without sources, which he provides none.
I however, would like to provide an analogy that is well studied. Porn. The availability of pornography is a well known reducer in rates of both rape and violence against women. Enacting the fantasy - Aristotle's method - IS a proven way to release sexual frustration and thus reduces the resulting violence. At least as far as the general population is concerned.
However, overconsumption of porn is linked with a progressive increase in aggression against women, decreased sympathy to rape victims, etc. Although, this is a chicken and egg issue is the porn delaying the persons aggression or causing it. Basically is porn preventing men from becoming Jack the Ripper, or is it causing them. We don't know because all we have is a correlation between overconsumption of porn and increasing violence.
To put it simply, for the average person "venting" their anger in a healthy way is going to be beneficial if their situation isn't producing the anger but an isolated incident did: your hot water heater rusted through, you've got a new one now but you're pissed about the flood. Getting that anger out is going to be beneficial if you do it in a healthy way (go to the batting cages or driving range and hit some balls). It's the same as porn, your girlfriend went away for two weeks over christmas to see her parents is a very different mental state compared to someone who's watching porn to see women have the shit beat out of them.
To me, it's looking at the chicken and the egg problem and saying "oh my god, eggs cause more eggs! Let's get rid of all the eggs." It's wholly naive. If you don't want eggs, just get rid of the god damn chicken!
I don't think it's just social. In general, "X, then I Y and it feels good" reinforces behavior Y when I do it. Neurons are trained over time, and your brain works differently. My understanding is that studies have supported this regarding "venting" in general, but have not shown this particularly with violent video games (which means likely you're not "venting" at all, really, by playing games).
"This is like someone who's depressed because they're in an abusive relationship taking antidepressants rather than leaving the relationship. You're treating symptoms, not dealing with causes."
Causes should be dealt with, but venting is not necessarily dealing with causes - whether I go play video games or slink off and punch a pillow or whatever. Even when venting has some effect on causes (my demonstration of anger is observable and so you notice there's actually a problem, and hopefully we deal with it) it's not likely to be the best way to deal with it.
'To me, it's looking at the chicken and the egg problem and saying "oh my god, eggs cause more eggs! Let's get rid of all the eggs." It's wholly naive. If you don't want eggs, just get rid of the god damn chicken!'
If you do a good job getting rid of all the eggs, time will get rid of the chickens. If getting rid of eggs is easier or seen as more ethical or whatever, it may well be the right approach to wiping out chickens. (Actually, as I recall it's been pretty effective - DDT put a few species on the endangered species list by thinning their egg shells).
Personally I have had problems much bigger than what I can handle and as a passive aggressive personality my mind's response is to simply ignore many problems which are otherwise very serious, which has led me into even bigger problems and on the edge of depression. But when I do happen to let my anger out, an interesting thing happens - I take steps to solve those problems, because vetting in itself can also be acknowledgement that you do have a problem in need of a fix.
That's why I don't like the study outlined, because like many other studies of psychology, it's very, very shallow and has a problem with causality.
Also, be mindful about the studies you read about. Before believing anything, be mindful about the science, the methodology behind it. For example if you take a look in the last 60 years, you'll probably discover hundreds of flawed studies on nutrition and cholesterol based on which medical personnel in all countries have been spreading myths as some sort of gospel.
My thinking is that many of the people who are really passionate about making games have somewhat addictive personalities. I.e. there are some people who would just never stay up 'till 3 am playing a game when there's something more "important" to do, whereas game creators have turned this flaw into a virtue (and a career).
EDIT> I love games, and I have a great job making games, but I'm 38 and I now realize that I spent way too much time playing games in my 20's. While it is a matter of self-control, I do have some guilt that some kid is going to fail their Compilers exam because they'd rather play computer games instead of studying, like me circa 1995.
Then again, binge drinking here is baked in to the cultural psyche. It may still be seen as more dangerous and therefore less socially acceptable in the States.
[1]: http://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2013/06/alcopops-tax-fails...
Binge drinking is completely socially acceptable in the States.
Good for him. The world needs more people with this attitude.
I'm not saying that what he did was right, but it was right for him, and what is impressive to me is that he realized that. That kind of self-knowledge is a wonderful quality to have or develop.
Wether he's made, or is still making, a fortune is besides the point. He made the hard choice and has made it clear to everyone who's asked that he is all the better for it. This more than anything else is a powerful and important example that we may or may not see again. If nothing else he has highlighted the need for more empathy in software. His focus seems to be in bringing joy and entertainment to people and doesn't appear to have any ulterior motive. This is rare and we should be celebrating it rather than dismiss it by the fact that he has been fortunate enough to actually be successful from it (something that is also extremely rare).
But from what I've heard, the paparazzi changes everything and it really is life-changing. So hard to say either way.
It seems you can just as easily be forgotten as a rock star.
It's possible this is instead just a brilliant marketing ploy.
Based on what, exactly? This sounds like conjecture.
UPDATE: Fine. Taking it down for one day can result in the audience feeling jerked around, him being perceived as unreliable, and any number of other negative connotations. There are also myriad instances of successful relaunches after extended absences, even to the degree that minor appearance tweaks justify a sequel or version bump. Simply put, there are just as many reasons why it wouldn't matter if he waited, if not more, than those supporting it to be "brilliant" for him to only wait a day and disastrous if he didn't.
Amazing that Hacker News, home of the "growth hacker", can't see this.
(It was probably because I was always ditching and dying that I saw them; I was pretty hopeless at it, although when I plugged my Xperia S into HDMI, the phone ran noticeably slower so it was significantly easier to play.... just a tip for anyone out there....)
Simply taking all that money and giving it away doesn't change that. The end does not justify the means.
The OPs actions are governed by his opinion and thoughts, and he chose what he wanted to do. You saying he should do what you want is absurd.
Until some kid actually stole my binder and I lost it all.
The moral of my story is "don't trust anyone"
I found myself playing in this exact manner many times while riding the subway. Even when I would go just one or two stops, it was convenient way to spend the time squeezing in a few games of Flappy Bird without worrying about concentrating too hard on any one game, or being concerned about getting cutoff in any one round by having to leave or dodge a bystander.
(BTW, dong is the name of Vietnam's currency, something that is probably worth a lot of jokes in the Vietnamese media)
Also, becoming a viral success (regardless of quality of the game) from Vietnam is a much different and rarer accomplishment than doing it from America (or any place where the world's media is more attuned to). Kudos to him!
In that part of the world, being rich without having the right connections/protection can be very, very dangerous.
I've only heard this said on HN and I doubt that it is significantly dangerous to be rich.
Sadly Vietnam (and China, etc) don't really adhere to the rule of law except on paper, bribes and corruption are normal and it's really about the connections you have.
You really have to live there to appreciate that -- not just on a holiday for a week.
Let me put it this way. You are poor. Your family is poor. Everyone around you is poor. When you are financially in trouble, you ask someone to lend you money. In Asian culture, you don't start asking bank for money. You ask your friends, relatives and neighbors for help.
Now you are famous. Making $50,000 a day. Everyone is going to come after you and ask for help. You don't want to because who wants to be debt collector? But you have to because they are your relatives, friends and neighbors. You are in a dilemma and you don't know what to do about it.
Also, regardless of where you live, when you are rich you and your family becomes kidnappers' target. In countries like Vietnam making $50,000 a day makes you a millionaire to the people who are just making a few dollars a day...
He was happy with the initial revenue but he then realize his publicity would have cost him relationship with other people and that's what money can't undo for him. He just can't.
Granted, it would involve a radical lifestyle transformation that might be unpleasant and jarring, but it seems like he already got exposed to that by getting internet famous. Might as well enjoy the money.
He also got himself a passport so I'm surprised he hasn't gone; anywhere but his home country he would be pretty anonymous. Could be just waiting for a visa.
Plus, he would be lucky if people protecting him would simply left. Those are probably people you do not want to mess with at all. It is entirely possible they would get dangerous and demanding.
That's the main insight.
Looking back through the chat snippets that people had mailed from that cam it looked like a bunch of assholes had actively pushed the guy to do it.
We figured out where he lived and sent the police to his home, they took the guy down and after that ev1 restored service to our machine but for the longest time I felt like simply leaving it off.
It's no fun at all when your creations get away from you in ways that you did not foresee. There is a lot more backstory to this which I'm not going to relate here for obvious reasons, and that wasn't even the lowest point of running a consumer oriented website for 15 years and counting, go figure.
three he's working on simultaneously: an untitled cowboy-themed shooter, a vertical flying game called Kitty Jetpack and an "action chess game," as he puts it, called Checkonaut, one of which he'll release this month
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jetpack-kitty/id567551748?mt...
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:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airhoc.fla...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ante.nyanc...
If you had enough money, would you realize it?
In the US, one study found that income is positively correlated to happiness only up to $75,000/year. If the $50K/day claims are true, in the 41 days between January 1 and February 10, he made enough money to live at $75,000/year for the next 27 years, without investment of any kind.
It's reasonable to guess that he will invest the money, and that the money/happiness plateau is significantly lower in Vietnam than in the US due to a lower cost of living. So he could be living at the happiness plateau for the rest of his life.
So why exactly should he care that he's passed up millions of dollars in selling stuff nobody needs? Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727770.101-money-can...
"People can clone the app because of its simplicity," Nguyen says, "but they will never make another Flappy Bird."
Weird.
And they watch pewdiepie because he is the top search result.
Shrug.
"As word spread from Reddit to YouTube, playgrounds to office parks, Flappy Bird rose to the Top 10 of the U.S. charts by early January."
John Romero, co-creator of the game Doom, says Flappy Bird
is "a reaction against prevailing design the way grunge
was a reaction to metal."i can't believe i'm explaining this to someone right now.
Intuitively, this doesn't seem like a good way to quote someone you called up specifically for this article.
Sure he's still making money from the people that downloaded it, but he's not being greedy and I respect that. He put the well-being and privacy of himself and his family above the crazy amounts of money he was making. He made his money and he is grateful, he didn't try and push it as far as he could have. Heck, he had so many offers from people wanting to buy the game, he could have easily commanded a six-figure sum for the IP alone, but didn't. He just decided to take it down and leave it at that.
The world needs more people like Dong.
Years ago, when I heard of someone being spectacularly successful at something I "could have done" should I have chosen to I chalked it up to luck & circumstance. Two prominent examples come to mind: Facebook and Groupon.
Funny thing is, every time I actually looked into the story behind such phenomena (or met the individuals involved), I would find there's always more than meets the eye.
There's some obsession, some genius (often bordering on insanity), some talent or character trait or propensity behind what seems to be just "luck".
Safe to say, I no longer believe in luck. Of course, there's randomness, which sometimes favors you and other times acts against your interests. But what people call "luck" is what you make of this randomness.
I don't know Dong Nguyen. I've never met him or talked to him. I don't know what makes him tick, or tap or flap. I have little to say about why he pulled his app, except that it likely had nothing to do with money or fame or success.
I can say, however, that there's likely more than meets the eye.
Great way of saying it.
As Nguyen is a very popular Vietnamese name, I'd thought to bring this up.. It is not pronounced with an 'N'.. wikipedia has the correct pronunciation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen
I don't think Nguyen needs a reason to pull the app, and I respect his right to change his mind but I find it funny that we all seek some sort of wisdom when in fact there might not be any. Shit got crazy and he pulled the game, the end. Doesn't make for a compelling story, and creates no "guiding mantra" for other game developers, but for me it's just as meaningful.
There's just one recommendation i can give him develop a thicker skin you can't change your game for every person blaming external things for their own incompetence.
My office is net to the call center if you ever hear the stupid shit people say you will realize you can't take anything to heart.
Do your thing man and ignore people complaining that their life was ruined by you in some way they will blame everybody except themselves.
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).
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?
Re: Asset store reskin, I have no idea. But FWIW I hadn't heard that accusation before.
The article explains how the game was designed.
The article is a little fuzzy -
"In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread. Nguyen had committed suicide."
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?
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.
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 industry's admiration.
We need many, many more people like him in this world. (from what I know about him)
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.
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.
Some of the asian social networks are ferocious, much worse than the twitter witch hunts we sometimes see in the US.
The Human flesh search engine doesn't sound like something I'd want to be on the wrong end of.