Flappy Bird is dead but its ghost continues to haunt the mobile gaming world. The game was simple and yet it became a phenomenon, forcing its creator to pull it down from the app stores on Feb. 9.
Shortly after the demise of Flappy Bird, fans went through a period of hysteria and other developers obliged by feeding that hysteria. The iOS and Android marketplaces were flooded with alternative games that were essentially clones of Flappy Bird. The craze shot through the ceiling when bidding for an iPhone with Flappy Bird installed, hit the $100,000 mark on eBay and it got stranger when an "RIP Flappy Bird" shirt boasted a sticker price of $10,000.
Then there was news that Apple and Google have been trying to thwart the attack of the clones by rejecting games that use the word "flappy" combined with any name of a flying creature. However, the move has done little to stop Flappy Bird-inspired games from flooding the app stores.
"Every morning, I swipe my way through RSS feeds - pulled from the Appshopper website - of every major App Store category, as part of the research for the monthly Best iPhone and iPad Apps feature. I do the same thing for Google Play from a different source," wrote Stuart Dredge of The Guardian.
Dredge found out that from 5 a.m. Feb. 26 to 5 a.m. Feb. 27 about 293 games for the iOS have been released. What he found shocking was that 95 of these games can be classified as obvious spin-offs of Flappy Bird.
Doing the math, more than 32 percent of the games submitted were heavily-inspired by Flappy Bird which, during its peak, allegedly earned its developer $50,000 on a daily basis. As of reporting, the top free games in the App Store prove the popularity of these games. Belonging to the top five are Flappy Wings, Hoppy Frog, and Flying Cyrus.
The iOS game list looks like a world of flappy-whatever with names such as tapping, jumping, floating, flying, among others substituted to the "Flappy" part of the nomenclature. The main character has been altered to worm, ninja, dino, kitty, jellyfish, bat, UFO, and even Bieber.
Most likely, most of these Flappy Bird clones will not make it big time but this craze is also a great opportunity for those who want to take advantage of unknowing end-users. Security experts warn of malware disguised as games that can steal someone's personal and sensitive information.
