Crypto bros wrested Flappy Bird from its creator(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Crypto bros wrested Flappy Bird from its creator
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/09/how-crypto-bros-wrested-flappy-bird-from-its-creator/
33 comments
>I have to give Dong Nguyen credit for pulling the game when he started to believe it caused more harm then good.
If he thought the game's design was "evil" why did he make the game in the first place? If you want to make a game, you need to actually sit down, come up with a game concept, prototype it and then produce it and finally publish it. He did all that but believing nobody or very few would play it but in reality Flappy Bird was sleeper hit and when it became viral he melt down. Whacky media headlines drove him "crazy" not bad or addictive game design of Flappy Bird.
If you want to be a creator of any kind you need to be open to all sorts of feedback; both bad and good, crazy and kind etc. etc.
>Unfortunately, greed and money always wins.
They don't....if he wanted to protect whatever was left of Flappy Bird's brand he should've copyrighted it and let it rest in peace and not left it for grabs.
If he thought the game's design was "evil" why did he make the game in the first place? If you want to make a game, you need to actually sit down, come up with a game concept, prototype it and then produce it and finally publish it. He did all that but believing nobody or very few would play it but in reality Flappy Bird was sleeper hit and when it became viral he melt down. Whacky media headlines drove him "crazy" not bad or addictive game design of Flappy Bird.
If you want to be a creator of any kind you need to be open to all sorts of feedback; both bad and good, crazy and kind etc. etc.
>Unfortunately, greed and money always wins.
They don't....if he wanted to protect whatever was left of Flappy Bird's brand he should've copyrighted it and let it rest in peace and not left it for grabs.
> If he thought the game's design was "evil" why did he make the game in the first place?
It is such a simple game, who would have thought it would inspire such overreaction? Tetris was much more addictive, and it was seen as an interesting phenomenon, but these days communication is so manipulative and violent, it seems any minor problem gets magnified into yet another crisis.
Think about it: Flappy bird is ruining lives. It was said with a straight face in many infotainment shows. Anything in excess can ruin lives, should we avoid cars, knives, alcohol, smartphones, videogames, food, water, etc.?
Flappy bird was never the problem, IMO the author likely withdrew it because the media magnificaton was becoming scary.
It is such a simple game, who would have thought it would inspire such overreaction? Tetris was much more addictive, and it was seen as an interesting phenomenon, but these days communication is so manipulative and violent, it seems any minor problem gets magnified into yet another crisis.
Think about it: Flappy bird is ruining lives. It was said with a straight face in many infotainment shows. Anything in excess can ruin lives, should we avoid cars, knives, alcohol, smartphones, videogames, food, water, etc.?
Flappy bird was never the problem, IMO the author likely withdrew it because the media magnificaton was becoming scary.
>Think about it: Flappy bird is ruining lives. It was said with a straight face in many infotainment shows.
They said the same thing about World of Warcraft, Dota, League of Legends, Fortnite and countless other examples. People and I believe all mammals are prone to the addictions, that's why you need to teach yourself self-control or find somebody else who can teach you that or perhaps help you to control yourself.
>Flappy bird was never the problem, IMO the author likely withdrew it because the media magnification was becoming scary.
Exactly, sensationalistic media headlines made him depressed not Flappy Bird as a game.
They said the same thing about World of Warcraft, Dota, League of Legends, Fortnite and countless other examples. People and I believe all mammals are prone to the addictions, that's why you need to teach yourself self-control or find somebody else who can teach you that or perhaps help you to control yourself.
>Flappy bird was never the problem, IMO the author likely withdrew it because the media magnification was becoming scary.
Exactly, sensationalistic media headlines made him depressed not Flappy Bird as a game.
That's capitalism and free market. Money, or at least numbers in a spreadsheet, always wins.
At least some individuals can have a conscience even if the system tends to iron that out at scale.
> Unfortunately, greed and money always wins.
I just feel sad that I have nothing to refute it with. So I am going to go and cry in a corner now.
I just feel sad that I have nothing to refute it with. So I am going to go and cry in a corner now.
I realize this is about a million times easier said than done - not least because I am trying to do it and it is in fact very hard - but you refute it by doing it better yourself.
I think we've all kind of internalized this idea that you have to be a shark to do business. But insofar as businesses are profitable (and many are), every dollar of profit represents a dollar of ruthlessness that that company didn't have to execute. If a company has a 10% profit margin, they can be 10% less ruthless, and that turns out to buy their way out of a lot of the worst abuses. Or at least it could if the company's leadership wanted it to.
But there is absolutely nothing stopping you, in principle, from starting a company of your own, choosing not to hand de facto control over it to shareholders, and making the executive decision not to screw people for an extra dollar. You can do that. In fact, the Flappy Bird guy did exactly that - it's just that in this case he got outmaneuvered by predatory jerks. (Or, if you want to frame it differently: he got outcompeted in the legal arena, as obviously wrong as that is in this instance.)
The only problem here is that he lost, so...you know, don't lose. Be as much of a shark as you need to be to do business and defend yourself against the other sharks, but no more than that, and you'll be doing a lot better than the status quo.
I think we've all kind of internalized this idea that you have to be a shark to do business. But insofar as businesses are profitable (and many are), every dollar of profit represents a dollar of ruthlessness that that company didn't have to execute. If a company has a 10% profit margin, they can be 10% less ruthless, and that turns out to buy their way out of a lot of the worst abuses. Or at least it could if the company's leadership wanted it to.
But there is absolutely nothing stopping you, in principle, from starting a company of your own, choosing not to hand de facto control over it to shareholders, and making the executive decision not to screw people for an extra dollar. You can do that. In fact, the Flappy Bird guy did exactly that - it's just that in this case he got outmaneuvered by predatory jerks. (Or, if you want to frame it differently: he got outcompeted in the legal arena, as obviously wrong as that is in this instance.)
The only problem here is that he lost, so...you know, don't lose. Be as much of a shark as you need to be to do business and defend yourself against the other sharks, but no more than that, and you'll be doing a lot better than the status quo.
They stole "Web3" too.
Crypto bros ruin every single thing they touch.
Or, to put it more generally: corporate greed ruins everything it touches. I was a big fan of the original Lemmings games as a teenager, and installed the "free to play" app version (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sadpuppy.l...) a while ago. It's a shadow of its former self! You have new "tribes" every month with "special" Lemmings you can collect (just one more way to try to get money out of your pocket, because you will never get the "full set" if you don't pay) and other such nonsense, but the level design barely changes (the levels of the original 1991 Amiga Lemmings game are more varied graphically than the levels in this app!) and it only has 3 (count'em!) songs which are played in the background. Sad...
The same thing happened with the Tetris app, it turned into a money sucking pay-to-play shill. I wish indie discovery was a bit better so it was easier to find works of passion based on love and craftsmanship rather than ranking-gamed money extractors
There's a port called Lemmix that is exactly what you're looking for. Has a level editor, a bunch of fanmade levels, some QOL features. Not mobile, but if what you're looking for is to get your nostalgia on...
I don't mind that it's not mobile, unfortunately it's also Windows only. Interestingly enough, it's written in Delphi, I wonder how much effort it would be to port it to FPC/Lazarus?
I have fond memories of playing Pingus - FLOSS clone of Lemmings - on my phone in school some 15 years ago. Suffice to say there were none of the issues you mention ;)
Except Nvidia stock prices
(Edit: Not anymore, obviously!)
(Edit: Not anymore, obviously!)
Are GPUs still used for mining at scale that would be meaningful for Nvidia’s earnings?
Ethereum switched to plutocracy, I mean proof-of-stake, years ago.
Ethereum switched to plutocracy, I mean proof-of-stake, years ago.
No, no, sorry. That was all years ago. Crypto's come and gone.
Have you missed the LLM wave?
Nvidia is riding on the AI bubble now.
From a business perspective, they seem to have done pretty well in that regard. Basically surfing from one bubble to the next. I seem to recall during the dot-com boom, somehow their share price was never hugely affected.
It probably helps that NVIDIA is underpinned by technical competence and their products have some basic utility outside of the bubble we are currently in.
It probably helps that NVIDIA is underpinned by technical competence and their products have some basic utility outside of the bubble we are currently in.
They made an early bet on CUDA (17 years ago!), long before it was cool to use GPUs for general computing. It paid off handsomely and soon overtook all their gaming profits.
I don't think anyone else was really trying that back then, except maybe Sony with their Cell processors in PS2s (but that was never really popular aside from a limited few supercomputing experiments).
I don't think anyone else was really trying that back then, except maybe Sony with their Cell processors in PS2s (but that was never really popular aside from a limited few supercomputing experiments).
I recently compiled some software using CUDA for the first time. It's a surprisingly easy experience. The tooling is easy enough to work with. I had to tweak one compiler setting so it would produce output that would work with my particular card. That's it.
> The main crypto-related project listed on the 1208 Productions site is a set of NFTs based around the "Deez Nuts" joke/brand. The webpage for that project also lists Roberts (aka "Papa Nut") as a partner of The Doge Pound NFT project.
Would it kill these guys to have one original idea.
Would it kill these guys to have one original idea.
> Would it kill these guys to have one original idea.
80% of all mainstream projects in each "hyped niche" (like blockchain, nfts, AI with LLMs) are just rehashing the exact same idea with a 1% change from the previous attempts, if even that.
Judging by the funded startups by Ycombinator and alike, original ideas is not what they're funding or out after at all.
For original ideas I think you have to start sucking up knowledge from research papers and associated conferences instead, seems to be the best way to get better understanding of the frontier, rather than looking at VC funded startups.
80% of all mainstream projects in each "hyped niche" (like blockchain, nfts, AI with LLMs) are just rehashing the exact same idea with a 1% change from the previous attempts, if even that.
Judging by the funded startups by Ycombinator and alike, original ideas is not what they're funding or out after at all.
For original ideas I think you have to start sucking up knowledge from research papers and associated conferences instead, seems to be the best way to get better understanding of the frontier, rather than looking at VC funded startups.
You say that like it's even possible for these people to have original ideas.
Now I understand why they so badly wanted Dong's goods.
Ok, they have the trademark, but how does it give them the permission to reuse or copy the original game assets, designs, etc?
It doesn't. But you can only fight for the restriction of those who do if you have the resources. I doubt he has.
Anyone can illegally take anyone's content and use it. It's not until the courts are involved you can't.
Some are just better funded than others, like Disney.
Anyone can illegally take anyone's content and use it. It's not until the courts are involved you can't.
Some are just better funded than others, like Disney.
It's interesting how so many people miss this. I often hear "Big Co. can't do Y, it'd be a violation of X!". Well of course they can. No one is going to pull C-Level executives from their beds in the middle of the night because they did something you don't like.
Likewise, lots of people seem to think that just because some IP has entered the public domain or it's "fair use" you won't get sued if you start using it. Of course you'll get sued. The plaintiff doesn't expect to win, they expect you to give up. I can already hear the sound of a thousand keyboards typing out responses to this how numerous jurisdictions have laws against "SLAPP" lawsuits.
Likewise, lots of people seem to think that just because some IP has entered the public domain or it's "fair use" you won't get sued if you start using it. Of course you'll get sued. The plaintiff doesn't expect to win, they expect you to give up. I can already hear the sound of a thousand keyboards typing out responses to this how numerous jurisdictions have laws against "SLAPP" lawsuits.
Leeches.
Unfortunately, greed and money always wins.