Flappy Bird has flown away just like the 1960’s Ford Edsel Ranger

Flappy Bird, the free gaming app that took the world by storm is ‘gone forever,’ according to its creator.

Nguyen Ha Dong, the developer who pulled his highly successful and profitable app over the weekend, revealed he did so because he thinks it was too addictive. The Vietnamese Hanoi-based developer is believed to have walked away from a small fortune as it is estimated he could have made $50,000 every day in in-app advertising alone. Dong announced the grounding of the addictive game in a Tweet at 1900 GMT on Saturday in which he also apologised to Flappy Bird players. He said on twitter:

’22 hours from now, I will take “Flappy Bird” down,’ Dong said adding: ‘It is not anything related to legal issues.’

‘I cannot take this anymore,’ he wrote.

Like Flappy Bird, the Edsel Ranger was launched with high hopes. Ford introduced Edsel as a new brand in 1958, hoping to target middle-market car buyers more upmarket than Ford, but not as expensive as Mercury. The brand was a spectacular flop. The 1960 Edsel Ranger was the last model produced. Ford shut down Edsel factories in 1959, meaning production didn’t even make it to its own model year.