I remember when the game was pulled from the stores. Some assholes were selling their devices with flappy bird still installed for insane amounts of money.
Why is that being an asshole?
Because if you wanted the game that badly you could just get an $15 android and sideload it instead of buying a $100+ phone for $1000+
Sure, it is as easy as you’re saying. So what’s wrong with someone selling a device that is already configured with the game to people who don’t want to spend the effort to do it themselves? At the end of the day, people spent money that they felt was worthwhile to get a game that they enjoy. It’s the same as people selling Batocera cards on Ebay nowadays.
It was a piece of crap anyway that had been done before in crappy flash games that predate the iPhone itself.
“Not completely novel” doesn’t mean something is crap.
You’re not wrong, but it was also kind of a cultural moment and it’s weird that it was disappeared entirely. Most games like that have long tails of focus creep, neglect, crapware, or irrelevance, but Flappy Bird went out with a pop.
Because it should have NEVER BEEN a pop in the first place. It didn’t go anywhere because OP correctly points out, it was done long before. The fact that it went anywhere in the first place is just a testament to humanities mob mentality. We are very easily swayed.