Dong Nguyen, creator of Flappy Bird, announced on his personal Twitter account Saturday that he would be shutting down the smartphone game.
The self-described indie game maker from Vietnam assured via a series of tweets that the move was not related to legal issues and that he will not be selling the game.
The notoriously addicting app climbed to the No. 1 free game spot in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store but is no longer available in either, although users who already downloaded the game still have access.
In an interview with The Verge, Nguyen revealed the game was earning an average of $50,000 a day from in-app advertisements.
According to The Verge, the app had been downloaded 50 million times as of Feb. 5, concurrent with apps like Gmail.
“The appeal is the hype. There was a certain point where almost everyone on social media websites, such as Twitter, were talking about Flappy Bird and how ridiculously stupid and frustrating it is,” said sophomore business major Issa Esmerit. “It took about three seconds to agree with everyone else; Flappy Bird is stupid and frustrating, though it did offer a challenge.”
Prior to the announcement of the shutdown, Nguyen noted in a tweet earlier that same day that Flappy Bird was a success he could call his own, but that it had also “ruin[ed] [his] simple life” and he now hates it.