• About One Third of Just-released iOS Games Are Some Kind of Flappy Bird Wannabe

    by
    Anthony Bouchard
    Published on 2014-02-28 01:33 AM
    17 Comments Comments


    Dong Nguyen's highly-popular and free Flappy Bird iOS mini-game was pulled from the App Store a few weeks ago, and even though it's no longer a part of the iOS App Store anymore, it's still a legend that current game developers are modeling off of.

    Just in the top six free applications in the iOS App Store alone, four of them make up some kind of Flappy Bird wannabe, and there are many, many, many more wannabes in the App Store of all kinds – some of them easier, some of them more complex. But one thing is for sure, and that is that none of them are the true Flappy Bird.



    The Guardian recently decided to look into the Flappy Bird phenomenon even further, and found that within a recent 24-hour period, 95 of 293 new games released into the iOS App Store were some kind of Flappy Bird wannabe. If you do the math, that's around 33%, or one-third.

    Originally Posted by The Guardian
    Today, when I launched my RSS reader, there were 293 new iOS games released since 5am yesterday morning. After scooting through them, I’ve been able to identify 95 that are obvious Flappy Bird-inspired games.

    The vast majority of these will sink without trace, of course. But at the time of writing, four of the top five free iPhone games in the US App Store fall into the Flappy genre – Flappy Wings, Hoppy Frog, Flying Cyrus - Wrecking Ball and Splashy Fish. In the UK, those four are all in the top 10.
    Very few of the wannabe games can actually pull of the aesthetic look and feel, and even the physics of Flappy Bird. Many of them even seem to add "lives," allowing the player to crash into something about three times before actually losing, which takes away the fun of the difficulty from the original Flappy Bird game.

    The Guardian has a whole list of the recently-released Flappy Bird wannabes here, and it's next to a no-brainer that more are destined to be released in coming weeks, and even maybe months.

    Nguyen, the developer behind Flappy Bird, currently doesn't have any plans to sell Flappy Bird or re-release it at this point in time.

    Sources: The Guardian via MacRumors
    This article was originally published in forum thread: About One Third of Just-released iOS Games Are Some Kind of Flappy Bird Wannabe started by Anthony Bouchard View original post
    1. Categories:
    2. iPhone,
    3. iPad,
    4. iOS,
    5. Apple,
    6. AppStore,
    7. iPad,
    8. Software
    Comments 17 Comments
    1. Magicpudding's Avatar
      Magicpudding - 2014-02-28, 01:39 AM
      wow just wow
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2014-02-28, 01:56 AM
      this is painful, Flappy Bird is/was crap; it took it's styling from the snes mario games and now we have sh1t imitations to deal with. Get Jetpack Joyride it's a lot more fun and a way better side scrolling, dodge objects game
    1. Co1d Night's Avatar
      Co1d Night - 2014-02-28, 02:00 AM
      Crap game, crap spin-offs.
    1. mlee19841's Avatar
      mlee19841 - 2014-02-28, 03:05 AM
      True. Every game is flappy something.
    1. thetoothfairy's Avatar
      thetoothfairy - 2014-02-28, 03:13 AM
      ^lol
    1. mlee19841's Avatar
      mlee19841 - 2014-02-28, 03:16 AM
      It's either flappy pig, flappy mouse, flappy oven, flappy sink, flappy South Park characters. Just crazy how over saturated the App Store became since that game came out.
    1. Zokunei's Avatar
      Zokunei - 2014-02-28, 03:28 AM
      People are complaining about this like way more than one-third of iOS games aren't already copies of each other. These "control your own empire" games are really getting ridiculous. They're just a slightly more sophisticated FarmVille with war-themed sprites.
    1. Anthony Bouchard's Avatar
      Anthony Bouchard - 2014-02-28, 03:35 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by dsg View Post
      this is painful, Flappy Bird is/was crap; it took it's styling from the snes mario games and now we have sh1t imitations to deal with. Get Jetpack Joyride it's a lot more fun and a way better side scrolling, dodge objects game
      I disagree. Even Nintendo themselves said they didn't see it as some kind of Mario game aesthetics knockoff.
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2014-02-28, 03:59 AM
      where did you get that info?

      Edit:
    1. *T*'s Avatar
      *T* - 2014-02-28, 04:01 AM
      Nintendo doesn't know its head from its feet.
    1. Co1d Night's Avatar
      Co1d Night - 2014-02-28, 06:11 AM
      Don´t forget Flappy Skin!

      I think the coder of the app did more bad than good when he removed it.
    1. Ozdude's Avatar
      Ozdude - 2014-02-28, 06:37 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by The Amazing Atheist View Post
      Don´t forget Flappy Skin!

      I think the coder of the app did more bad than good when he removed it.
      +1. That was my immediate thought when I read the article!
    1. Zokunei's Avatar
      Zokunei - 2014-02-28, 06:47 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by dsg View Post
      Edit:
      Thank you.
    1. Anthony Bouchard's Avatar
      Anthony Bouchard - 2014-02-28, 03:04 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by dsg View Post
      where did you get that info?

      Edit:
      A large company like Nintendo, which is in shambles right now thanks to mobile gaming taking away from their handheld console sales, would certainly take Nguyen to court to try and get as much money as they could if Nintendo had thought the game posed some kind of copy to the popular Mario game.

      Nintendo did not do so:

      Nintendo denies killing Flappy Bird with legal challenge | Technology | theguardian.com

      Similar aesthetics? Possibly. But there are several games on the market right now that have similar-looking footballs and soccer balls in them too, and that doesn't seem to pose a problem for the market.
    1. Sage I's Avatar
      Sage I - 2014-02-28, 05:49 PM
      And now we have at least a half dozen flappy bird winterboard skins released on Cydia every day... That's been annoying me a lil ...
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2014-03-01, 03:26 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Anthony Bouchard View Post
      A large company like Nintendo, which is in shambles right now thanks to mobile gaming taking away from their handheld console sales, would certainly take Nguyen to court to try and get as much money as they could if Nintendo had thought the game posed some kind of copy to the popular Mario game.

      Nintendo did not do so:

      Nintendo denies killing Flappy Bird with legal challenge | Technology | theguardian.com

      Similar aesthetics? Possibly. But there are several games on the market right now that have similar-looking footballs and soccer balls in them too, and that doesn't seem to pose a problem for the market.
      pipes and birds, two things that you don't associate
    1. ABOSWORTH's Avatar
      ABOSWORTH - 2014-03-03, 03:51 PM
      Same crap in the Google Play Store. Seems like every other game is some knock off of crappy birds. Don't get the hype with that game anyway. I found it to be dreadfully boring.

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