There may be hope for Flappy Bird fans yet!
Dong Nguyen, the Vietnamese creator of the insanely popular smartphone game, told Rolling Stone in a March 11th interview that he is "considering" bringing the game back after taking it down last month.
On February 8th, Nguyen sent the following tweet, breaking the hearts of countless Flappy Bird fans:
After the game was removed from Apple's App Store, Nguyen told Forbes that he took it down because it had become "an addictive product."
Rolling Stone gives readers a glimpse of Nguyen's past:
Growing up in Van Phuc, a village outside Hanoi famous for silk-making, Nguyen (pronounced nwin) never imagined being a world-famous game designer. Though his father owned a hardware store and his mother worked for the government, his family couldn't afford Game Boys for him or his younger brother. But eventually, they were able to purchase a Nintendo, which, like most electronics in Vietnam, was available only in cloned form. Marveling at the power of controlling a character onscreen, Nguyen spent his free time obsessively playing Super Mario Bros.
The article explains that before making an estimated $50,000 a day from Flappy Bird, Nguyen studied computer science and eventually went to work for a company that made cellphone games.
He modeled the now-iconic smartphone app on the classic game of paddleball, along with some Nintendo-esque visuals. After Flappy Bird sat unnoticed on the App Store and then eventually went viral, Nguyen became concerned about the game's addictive quality, and its success began to weigh down on him.
The rest, as they say, is history. Nguyen pulled the game, and now the App Store is flooded with Flappy Bird clones.
If Flappy Bird returns, Nguyen tells Rolling Stone that it would come with a cautionary message along the lines of "please take a break."
Unfortunately, lots of us probably won't heed his warning.