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Flappy Bird developer to remove game

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The developer of Flappy Bird, currently the most popular free mobile game on Apple App Store and Google's Android Play store, has announced that he is taking the game down at 1am on Monday (Singapore time).

Mr Nguyen Ha Dong announced the grounding of the addictive game in a Tweet, in which he also apologised to Flappy Bird players.

"It is not anything related to legal issues. I cannot take this any more," the Hanoi-based game developer wrote.

Flappy Bird has caused a sensation after rising out of obscurity to become one of the most downloaded mobile games on both Apple and Google's online stores, Reuters reported.

Users have to steer a bird between green pipes.

The Android version has been downloaded up to 50 million times and attracted more than half a million reviews.

QUESTIONING DECISION

Many people have been questioning Mr Dong on Twitter about his decision to take down the game, because he had, only a day earlier, been talking about developing the game for Microsoft's Windows phones.

Mr Dong could not be reached for comment

Unlike other successful game makers such as Rovio Entertainment, which produced the popular Angry Birds game and has hundreds of programmers, Mr Dong made Flappy Bird by himself in a few nights, he said on Twitter earlier.

The game, which he said was inspired by Nintendo's Mario Bros, has been earning on average of US$50,000 (S$63,400) a day from advertising, Mr Dong said in a media interview.

Two of Mr Dong's friends said that Nintendo had sent him a warning letter.

But the Japanese game maker said it was not considering a lawsuit.

Mr Dong had said earlier that he was not looking for any investors and would not sell the game. One expert said investors would not be interested.

Said Mr Nguyen Hieu Linh, investment manager at the Japanese CyberAgent Ventures Inc: "Flappy Bird is not to the taste of many game investors because it's just hit-based which will bring very uncertain cash flow and no recurring."