Flappy
Birds is back! But not for smartphones, apparently!
Vietnamese
Developer Dong
Nguyen, founder of Game Development Studio DotGears, who’s listed himself as
its sole employee has apparently made good on his promise to return Flappy Bird
in August 2014 to Amazon Fire TV as stated in “Flappy
Bird Returns As A Multiplayer Game… But Only For Amazon’s Fire TV”, published
Aug 1, 2014 by Greg Kumparak, TechCrunch.
Only
this time it’s called Flappy Bird
Family and it’s exclusively for the Amazon
Fire TV.
Something
tells me that this isn’t going to sit well with the Casual Gaming community!
But it fits with his personality, as after all, Dong Nguyen had yanked the game
originally in February 2014 because it WAS TOO POPULAR as stated in my blog article
entitled “Developer
Dong Nguyen takes down US$50000 a day Flappy Bird App - Unwanted Media
Attention leaves DotGears Game as the first In-App Advertising Gaming App”.
Apparently
he was getting flamed by jealous copycats as well as parents concerned about
its addictive nature that was so distracting. After all, for these smartphone
toting teenagers used to cheating at games or paying their way to the top, it
must have been pretty frustrating to play a game that so simple in its premise
yet was basically an arcade-level Game clothed in Casual robes.
Those
parents may have been even more enraged when they discovered that Dong Nguyen
was NOT American, but was making some US$50,000 per month from Advertising
revenue!
Flappy Bird on Amazon
Fire TV – Less Addictive design with more Amazon money for exclusivity
Trust
me folks, that was a lot of money to walk away from. But it shows you the
character of Dong Nguyen; he’s more interested in
making a great game that one for which he’s vilified for, a point of view that
may have been driven by his religious beliefs as noted in “The
Flight of the Birdman: Flappy Bird Creator Dong Nguyen Speaks Out”,
published March 11, 2014 BY DAVID KUSHNER, Rolling Stones.
Still,
Amazon must have paid him a boatload of money to get the game for Amazon
Fire TV. Their US$99 Gaming and TV Streaming platform was launched in April
of 2014 as described in my blog article entitled “Amazon
launches Amazon Fire TV Set Top and Gaming Console - Amazon Prime Delight
challenges Apple iTV, enflames Cord-Cutter's Nirvana portending Console Gaming
Renaissance”.
This
was to the surprise of many, as it seemed off that with the US$199 Amazon
Kindle Fire that could already play Casual Video Games and stream movies from
Amazon’s ample collection available to Amazon Prime members, this seemed like
overkill. But as it turned out, US$99 is the sweet spot for such a device
that’s riding a Streaming Trend as well as allowing you to play Casual Games on
the couch.
Amazon
aficionados agreed, snapping up the Amazon
Fire TV like Wildfire in the very same month till it was out-of-stock as
I’d reported in my blog article
entitled “Amazon
Fire TV is a bonafide hit and is out-of-stock according to Amazon - The Bamboo
powered smartphone running Amazon apps cometh”.
Flappy Bird Family –
Multiplayer Platform Amazon Fire TV lends to family-friendliness Addictive
design
So
this new Flappy
Bird Family game was conceptualized to be more family-friendly and less addictive
as noted in the article “Flappy
Bird Returns - yet only on Amazon Fire TV”, published August 1, 2014 12:51
PM PDT by Nick Statt, CNET News. This way
both parents and children can enjoy playing the game on the Amazon
Fire TV when they’re bored with streaming a Movie or Series Show.
As for that too, double-digit high scores are easier to
obtain as the arcade-level difficulty has been removed thanks to the fact that
you can now use a game controller instead of a smartphone’s touch screen,
making the Flappy Bird character a lot easier to control. Something tells me
that albeit this is a compromise to his many critics, he’s sacrificed the soul
of his game at the altar of lucre.
So
will Flappy
Bird Family find a good home on the Amazon
Fire TV? Only time will tell if Dong Nguyen’s sacrifice was indeed
worth it, as by going family, he’s really doing what’s right; bringing the
Family together, one Super Mario obstacle at a time!
Here’s the link:
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