???? – 2014retired
Google TV (2010–2014)
“It put the whole web on your couch before your couch was ready for it.”
“He made a bird we couldn't stop tapping, then took it away to save us from ourselves.”
Flappy Bird was a 2013 mobile game from Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen and his company .Gears, in which you guided a bird named Faby through impossibly narrow gaps between green pipes. Nguyen built it in just a few days, using a bird recycled from a cancelled 2012 game. Critics grumbled about its brutal difficulty and borrowed look, but players couldn't put it down.
By early 2014 it had become a sleeper hit and the most downloaded free game in the iOS App Store, earning $50,000 a day along the way. Then, at the peak, Nguyen took it down from both app stores, saying he felt guilty over what he saw as its addictive grip. The pipes stand empty now, and the bird rests.
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“It put the whole web on your couch before your couch was ready for it.”
“Announced in June, gone by July — it lived fast, loved briefly.”
“Live Tiles, dead platform — but the Metro look never left our hearts.”