Flappy Bird Lawsuit By Nintendo Scared Creator Dong Nguyen Off?

Did a potential Flappy Bird lawsuit scare the creator of the game, Dong Nguyen, into removing the app from the both the Android and iOS stores?

In a related report by The Inquisitr, for those who were too late to download the game, this Flappy Bird hack allows you to manually install the game. We also have some Flappy Bird tips and tricks to help improve your score (well, other than blatant cheats, of course).

Without warning, Nguyen went to Twitter to announce he removing Flappy Bird from all app stores:

“I am sorry Flappy Bird users. 22 hours from now I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore. It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore. I also don’t sell Flappy Bird, please don’t ask. And I still make games.”

Some people speculated it was all marketing hype intended to scare people into downloading Flappy Bird. But he really did it. It’s gone. So now everyone is speculating why Nguyen removed Flappy Bird.

Regardless of intent, Forbes says Nguyen had a marketing stroke of genius:

“There’s a running theory that Nguyen is some sort of secret marketing genius, and this was all a big ploy to increase downloads of the game. After all, even if he does remove the app from the store, it is not erased off of your phone or tablet. And neither are its in game ads. The app should continue making him consistent revenue, even if it’s no longer being actively sold. And after yesterday, that will likely be even more than $50,000 a day, if those original figures were accurate.”

This sounds about right since the number of reviews have almost doubled. In addition, Dong Nguyen’s Twitter account has quadrupled in its number of followers despite the creator being silent since the announcement and Nguyen’s other games are still available for download.

The dark side of this story is the potential for a Flappy Bird lawsuit. Forbes thinks this theory is unlikely, saying instead the creator is simply trying to avoid the limelight and go back to a “simpler life” as one fan tweet suggests. Whether or not that is true is unknown, but we do know the recent history of video game lawsuits makes an intellectual property dispute a very real possibility.

For example, maker of Words With Friends, Zynga, apparently felt that apps about sex and scrabble were a little too close for comfort so they sued Bang With Friends over the name of the app. More recently there was the Candy Crush Saga lawsuit. Game developer King decided it had domain over all video games that have “candy” in the title. They even filed a lawsuit against a game called The Banner Saga because they used the word “saga” in their title. (Personally, I agree with Penny Arcade’s take on that lawsuit.)

Despite Nguyen explicitly denying any Flappy Bird lawsuit by claiming his decision was not decided by “anything related to legal issues” it’s possible the accusations of plagiarism did play a factor. If you look around on the internet it’s not too hard to find people accusing Flappy Bird of ripping off Nintendo’s Super Marios Bros. pipes and coin sound effects, never mind the obvious similarities to a 2011 game called Piou Piou that features a big-lipped yellow bird dodging between objects.

Dong Nguyen does have his defenders, though. For example, this game design blog points out that if you compare the precise game mechanics of each game there are notable differences:

Do you think a Flappy Bird lawsuit would be justified against Dong Nguyen in this case?