Painfully difficult Flappy Bird generates $50,000 per day in ad revenue

The delightful yet crushingly difficult mobile game Flappy Bird generates an average of $50,000 per day in advertising revenue, creator Dong Nguyen revealed to The Verge. The chart-topping iOS and Android game, which is free to download, has become a veritable hit, with more than 50 million downloads to date.

Flappy Bird's premise is simple: you tap the screen anywhere to make a pixelated bird move upwards. Hitting any of the green pipes on your path means game over. The game's only goal is to get the highest score possible.

"The reason Flappy Bird is so popular is that it happens to be something different from mobile games today, and is a really good game to compete against each other," Nguyen said. "People in the same classroom can play and compete easily because [Flappy Bird] is simple to learn, but you need skill to get a high score."

Nguyen said he doesn't plan to add anything more to the game, like an in-app purchase option to disable ads--which can prove disastrous to your concentration when they appear.

"Flappy Bird has reached a state where anything added to the game will ruin it somehow, so I'd like to leave it as is," he said. "I will think about a sequel but I'm not sure about the timeline."

Finally, Nguyen revealed that Flappy Bird's main bird was inspired by Super Mario Bros.' "Cheep Cheep," and the game's green pipes are also an homage to Nintendo's work, he said.