Apple and Google Take Action Against Flappy Bird Clones

Apple and Google are actively banning games with Flappy in the title from the App Store and Play Store. Many developers have tried to cash in on its success by creating clones of the game that became all the hype last month.

Apple stops games with Flappy in the title before they appear in the App Store, while Google removes them soon after publication, Techcrunch writes. Developers have tried to monetize independent Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen’s game by creating versions with malware or lots of ads. Nguyen himself took the game offline.

Meanwhile, Microsoft does not have the same policy: there are several clones with the same name and a logo derived from the original game in the Windows Phone Store. Nguyen released his game, in which the user has to guide a bird through openings in green pipes, in May last year. At the beginning of this year, for unknown reasons, a hype around Flappy Birds suddenly arose. There are now countless variants and clones available, both for mobile phones and for desktop browsers.