We told you the Flappy Bird phenomenon was real, and the game’s developer has revealed numbers and stats to prove it. Just days after developer Dong Nguyen asked for “peace” on Twitter from the press, he granted an interview with The Verge to reveal the game has surpassed 50 million downloads and generates $50,000 per day from the game’s ad banner.
Press people are overrating the success of my games. It is something I never want. Please give me peace.
— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 4, 2014
The game also has garnered over 47,000 reviews in the App Store, taking it to the heights of apps like Evernote and Gmail.
Nguyen explains why Flappy Bird is so popular:
“The reason Flappy Bird is so popular is that it happens to be something different from mobile games today, and is a really good game to compete against each other,”
“People in the same classroom can play and compete easily because [Flappy Bird] is simple to learn, but you need skill to get a high score.”
For those questioning why Flappy Birds is so darn hard, it’s because the game employs real-life physics with its gravitational pull, as explained by physics teacher Frank Noschese from John Jay High School in Cross, New York:
TL;DR: Is the physics in Flappy Bird realistic? Yes AND no.
YES: The gravitational pull is constant, producing a constant downward acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s (if we scale the bird to the size of a robin).
NO: The impulse provided by each tap is variable in order to produce the same post-tap velocity. In real life, the impulse from each tap would be constant and produce the same change in velocity.
To illustrate this point, Noschese uploaded a video comparing a basketball being dropped shown side by side next to the Flappy Bird free falling, which as you can see is identical:
Since games like Angry Birds have influenced gamers with unrealistic gravitational pull, playing Flappy Bird ends up bringing everyone back to earth.
Our latest high score is 18 with casual playing over two days. What’s yours?
Click here to download Flappy Bird from the App Store.
