[NewsPoster]

The creator of Flappy Bird, Dong Nguyen, didn't pull the app because of threats from Nintendo, a spokesman for the latter suggests. Although very different in terms of gameplay, many people have commented that the pipes in Flappy Bird look similar or identical to those from Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. series. In a new email, spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa repeats the position that Nintendo has never made any complaints.

"While we usually do not comment on the rumors and speculations, we have already denied the speculation," Minagawa says.

Before its removal Flappy Bird was enormously successful, generating over 50 million downloads and more than $50,000 a day in ad revenue. Nguyen has complained about being overwhelmed by the attention though, and has said he won't return the game online unless he feels otherwise.

[jdonahoe]

If I was making $50000 a day, I'd put up with a LOT of abuse!

It may be the lawyers at Nintendo really spooked him with non disclosure tied to their desist and decease.

[coffeetime]

There are lots of similarities from that game to SuperMario. Not just the pipes, it's the whole feel of it including background, the pixelated bird (16bit SNES look character).... etc.

[auto_immune]

I really cannot see why the game was popular - I thought it sucked, and deleted it after several minutes of play.

[sammaffei]

But "auto_immune" you did download it and was fed at least one ad. So, it worked from the author's standpoint.