Flappy Bird - how did this happen?

Super smart of him to delete it from the app store. In that way he does not officially distribute his app and in that way he can not be sued by nintendo for copyright reasons. But he still makes 50k a day from people that still play the game. Plus he boosted his downloads because it was all over the news that he was going to take it down. Free advertising!

“Even the twinkly sound effect when your bird flies between pipes is heavily inspired by Mario’s coin-collecting chime, to the point where they sound nearly identical,” the site reported. “And what about the bird itself? While the eponymous Flappy Bird isn’t a direct rip-off, it appears to be a cross between the Spike and Cheep Cheep enemies in Super Mario 3”

Maybe he gracefully bowed out

Maybe he couldn’t handle the pressure, but why would he say he will keep developing games?

Or maybe he did it because of legal reasons, copying the design from Mario.

Or maybe he is worried about tax payments in Vietnam, who knows what the laws are there…

Exactly my thoughts, he’s going to keep developing and do what, hope it’s not successful? That would be dumb.

If it was, why not simple reskin the game. Pay for damages and keep everything from the new look.

Half the year income, half the year tax. No problem.why would it matter if you made 50k a day. Lol

It was a good idea taking it down because there’s no way Nintendo hasn’t noticed by now, but in case anyone is still confused, this guy isn’t some marketing genius. He made a super basic game with stolen graphics from the most nostalgic game of all time that went viral because it’s stupid hard and some popular twitter accounts mentioned it. Sure the share feature was a good idea but I just implemented the same thing last week in less than an hour. This app’s success was pure luck IMO but it does go to show the effectiveness of a share button. Just think, if some celebrity retweets your app you might have a million random installs overnight (which is what I’m thinking happened to flappy bird in Dec)

I don’t know how laws in Vietnam are, but in Romania, if you don’t have a legal way (a company) to earn money and the money goes directly to your personal bank account, you risk having all the money taken away from you.

Wow, that’s not good. Must be more to that law, it’s not like he’s doing anything illegal. Either way, I’m pretty sure he could find a business partner with a company in no time flat

Actually it is illegal. You are not allowed to sell anything if you don’t have the right to do it. If I have an IT company and sell financial services all the income from selling financial services can be suppressed. Obviously, if you don’t own a company and you sell any services, any such incomes can be suppressed. By company I mean legal entity in general.

I had a situation like this when I was selling services as a legal entity a few years ago. My legal entity expired without me knowing about it and I billed a client 2 weeks later. I found out I didn’t have a legal entity 4 weeks later and I was this close to having those earnings suppressed. In the end I figured out a solution but the whole experience wasn’t pleasant at all.

Well then in his case. Nothing was sold! Maybe that can be his loop hole. and Google does hold your payments if you don’t want them. If he couldn’t collect money from apps, then why would he build one and put ads in it? So obviously this can not be the problem

What about working for sites like odesk and elance. Are you allowed to keep your earnings?

Yes, something was sold. A product or a service, depends on how you look at it. Maybe he didn’t know he couldn’t collect the money, or he didn’t know he will earn so much. With little earnings per month there isn’t a lot of risk of being noticed by the IRS but with so much buzz around your name the sharks appeared immediately.

I am not saying this is what happened, I am saying this is a possibility.

And it doesn’t really matter why he decided to take out the game, may be for personal reasons.

I am more interested in finding out how the game got so successful, maybe I can use some information in my next games. :slight_smile:

You are allowed to sell a service if you have legal entity. If you don’t have a legal entity you are not allowed to sell a service. And you need a degree to be able to become a legal entity.

And you pay fees and taxes on your business with that legal entity.

Handling Internet stress is easy. You just ignore or hire someone to handle it for you. But he was probably harrassed in his country. We don’t know how things are there, probably by criminals or their own government… Just a thought

Ok so a degree is mandatory for anybody trying to make money. Motivation for the people to learn. Nothing wrong with that.

That sounds really weird. Was that during communist times? I’m pretty sure the freedom to conduct business is anchored in the charter of rights of the European Union. There may be some protected businesses like medical professions or financial consulting and so on, but writing a stupid mobile game certainly shouldn’t fall under that. Who is “suppressing” the income, and on basis of what law? If I mow your lawn and you give me a few bucks, the tax man may jump out from behind the tree and take that money away because I don’t have a degree or “legal entity”?

In Poland if you didn’t pay income tax you would just need to start doing so and pay with interest the tax for earlier income. With his money he could hire someone to sort this out. Anyway, he said it was not for legal reason…

If you mow a lawn for money you need to pay taxes. You need to pay taxes for every income you earn and it’s not related to communism at all. And you don’t need a degree to mow a lawn but you need one to sell services as a programmer because you need a legal entity. A college degree is enough but you need evidence that you’re capable and have the knowledge of programming.

Incomes you get through bank accounts are easy to trace because the bank statement proves you’ve received a payment. The chance of being discovered are slim if you’re not earning a lot because no one will bother investigating you.

If you want to get hired as an accountant you need to have a degree. Sure, you can do accounting for a company if you know how to do it but you won’t be hired on an accountant position but on another position that doesn’t require a degree.

It’s the same thing when creating a legal entity: you can have a legal entity with the right to sell flowers but you can’t sell accounting services. And if you have legal entity to sell accounting services you can’t sell programming services.

And you need the legal entity BEFORE you’ve received payment. Usually the date on the bill can’t be after you’ve received payment. And to issue a bill you need to have a legal entity.

Let’s say you’ve earned $100k and the money is in your bank account. Later you decide to create a company and get your payments through its bank account. The money you received before creating the company went through your personal account but you haven’t registered as a legal entity so that money is subject to suppression by the government because you didn’t have the right to perform the activity you received payment from.

In what country do you need a degree to create a software company? :expressionless: Sounds really weird.

You guys got off topic. The game is down…

Opportunity for spammers to rake in cash by the buckets :wink: