You have almost certainly seen it being played.  In study halls, on the bus, or maybe even in class, there is a good chance you will hear a high pitched beep as a Flappy Bird  player has guided their bird through another set of pipes.  In this high tech and complicated world, you would expect any of the most popular games to be filled with crystal clear graphics, complicated plots or cost plenty of money to play.  However, Flappy Bird is none of these, which might be part of the reason it is so popular.

“It’s the simplistic drive that keeps you wanting more.” Says sophomore Weston Szalay on why Flappy bird is so popular and he adds that the sheer number of people playing it also adds to its appeal.  “If only one person played it, it wouldn’t catch on at all.”  Flappy Bird has drawn suspicions about drawing fake downloads and reviews, with some people believing this is how it grew in popularity.  However no one has been able to prove anything.

This deceptively addicting game debuted in the app store by Vietnamese game developer Dong Nguyen in May of last year, but didn’t really take off until January 2014.  The game is amazingly simple, guide a bird through a set of pipes by tapping it to make it fly, and try to get between as many pipes as possible.  When you hit a pipe or the ground you die and the game is over.  One of the most important features of the game is that it keeps your high score and displays it after every run, which is one of the reasons Sophomore Ryan Olson thinks it is so popular,

“The competitive design, the drive to constantly beat your own score (is why it is popular).”

The app was free but has recently been taken down from the app store after Nguyen tweeted that he “couldn’t take it anymore.”  Many speculated that it was due to legal troubles, as the game’s pipes resemble those in Super Mario Bros., but later he tweeted that it was “Not anything related to legal issues”.  A couple of days later Nguyen finally came clean as to why he took the game down in an interview with Forbes magazine saying, “Flappy Bird was meant to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed.  But it has become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem.”

However, Flappy Bird being taken down may not be important to some. Sophomore Ryan Olson said, “There are so many (Flappy Bird) rip offs it doesn’t even matter.” To others however the game means much more than one would think.  Reportedly some mobile devices with Flappy Bird on them were selling in the range of several thousand dollars on eBay before eBay finally disallowed them on their site.  Whether Flappy Bird returns or not, one thing is for sure:  It has left one of the strangest and biggest legacies a simple game can leave.