How Apple And Google Are Stopping Games With “Flappy” In The Title From Taking Flight
If you hadn't heard enough about Flappy Bird already, here’s some more: Google and Apple are now actively rejecting other games that contain ‘Flappy’ in the title.
By Sadho Ram — 16 Feb 2014, 01:24 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
The Flappy Bird phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down, despite the fact that the original title was yanked out of the App Store by creator Dong Nguyen, whose newfound fame apparently became too overwhelming
However, that may not be the case for long. Word has it that both Apple and Google are now rejecting games that have the word “flappy” in their title.
According to Vancouver-based game designer Ken Carpenter of Mind Juice Media, Apple rejected an app of his called “Flappy Dragon” from the App Store. Apple told him “we found your app name attempts to leverage a popular app,” says Carpenter.
techcrunch.com
Apple told him the app was in violation of the following section of the App Store Review Guidelines:
9to5mac.com
Clearly, the only app “Flappy Dragon” would be leveraging is “Flappy Bird” – which, to be clear, is technically no longer present in the App Store.
techcrunch.com
The move is an apparent effort to stem the flow of clones appearing in the respective stores, since over the last few days we’ve already seen a number of them emerge such as Flappy Doge, Sesame Bird, Fall Out Bird
Carpenter isn’t the only game developer affected by the policy shift, it seems. A tweet from Kuyi Mobile indicates that a small handful of developers attempting to launch their own “Flappy” clones have also been rejected for the same reason:
appadvice.com
This is somewhat odd, given that there are already several similarly named games on the market, including “Flappy Bee,” “Flappy Plane,” “Flappy Super Hero,” “Flappy Flyer,” and even “Flappy Bird Flyer,” Carpenter points out. Plus, there are clones that don’t include “Flappy” in the title, like “Splashy Fish” and “Ironpants” – #1 and #2 in the App Store’s top charts, at present.
techcrunch.com
Meanwhile, others that include “Flappy,” but don’t lead with it, are also doing well: spot #3 is “City Bird – Flappy Flyer” and #7 is “Fly Birdie – Flappy Bird Flyer.” In other words, the App Store’s top charts are being absolutely decimated by “Flappy Bird” clones. And users are still eating them up en masse.
Both Kuyi Mobile and Happy Mage Games stated that Google is also rejecting app submissions that use “Flappy” in the title
Says Carpenter, “Yeah, I was rejected from Google Play, too.”
techcrunch.com
“The first time I assumed it was because I included a phrase about ‘Flappy Dragon’ being the best flapping game to play now that ‘Flappy Bird’ is dead. My app was originally published with no issue and was online and searchable for a few hours,” Carpenter explains.
9to5mac.com
Shortly afterwards, Google removed it from search, but it was still visible through its direct link. Around 24 hours later, he received a suspension notice.
techcrunch.com
After removing the competitor’s app name in the description, Carpenter resubmitted the game. After a few hours, it, too, disappeared from search.