By Jeremy Hannaford (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: February 19, 2014
A successful game is not only fun, but addictive.
Designers want to build a game that keeps people coming back to it, pushing homework and chores aside for just a few more hours of play.
So what happens when a developer realizes their game is addicting and takes it down for just that reason?
This is what happened with Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen from dotGears Studios. The side-scrolling game has a player guide a bird flying between a series of tubes. The game’s only true objective is to get a score higher than that of your friends. The game is extremely difficult, addicting, yet plain and repetitive.
And the game’s popularity is due to its ridiculous difficulty level. Much like Super Meat Boy, it is popular because it is hard. Certain gamers love a ridiculous challenge. The idea of risk vs. reward has become more focused within some games in the last few years. The reward for beating games like Dark Souls is that you finally defeat the game’s insane difficulty. The notoriety of difficult games is a concept that hearkens back to games from the Sega Saturn or Super Nintendo. But these games were usually difficult because of no checkpoints, awkward controls, or terrible mechanics.
Some difficult games are actually good when they weren’t filling you with fury. Ninja Gaiden is one of the best examples of difficult but entertaining game play from the early 2000s (an aspect they continued in the sequel but failed to continue in the third game). After former Team Ninja lead developer Tomonobu Itagaki heard that the number of people who completed Ninja Gaiden 2 was staggeringly low in comparison to the number of those who bought it, he thought a change was necessary. He handed the series to Yosuke Hayashi who made the game easier but also made a mediocre and seemingly streamlined product. In this case, being more difficult translated into a much better product.
Around the same time, a game by the name of Demon Souls was receiving a large amount of attention due to its difficulty. So much so that it generated a majorly successful sequel, Dark Souls. Embracing its difficulty, when it came time for a PC platform release, From Software dubbed it the Prepare to Die edition.
So it’s no surprise Flappy Bird became popular because of its difficulty. Much like Angry Birds, the game mechanics recall games we used to play on the internet during info-tech classes in high school. Flappy Bird is an updated version of Helicopter Game, one of the best free Flash games of all time. If you never played it, you surely never enjoyed the internet as a young teen. The same can be said for Angry Birds. There were hundreds of castle siege games before the emergence of Angry Birds. All Rovio Entertainment did was put birds and pigs on the screen and it became a worldwide sensation.
So what does this say about Nguyen’s choice for removing Flappy Bird from the marketplace? Perhaps he is against the idea of in-game advertisements. The Verge reported he was making almost $50,000 a day from in-game ad revenue. In an interview with the publication, he said he couldn’t sleep. The amount of attention the game was getting was much more than he had originally intended. He originally designed the game for people to spend a few minutes a day playing it to relax.
Now, if you didn’t download it before its removal, you can always buy a phone that has it on Ebay for $900. Or you can find one of the many knock-offs on the internet — my favourite version so far features Bert from Sesame Street.
Nguyen’s actions are commendable as well as surprising. Such a decision is a display of integrity and self-acceptance. The fact that dotGears Studios went along with the decision shows the well-founded relationship it shares with Nguyen. His actions have definitely set the stage for other developers who are making successful addictive games.
