By Li Hongmei

A new mobile game Flappy Bird rapidly became the second most popular free App in China shortly after its rollout, and remained in the top spot in the US, until the designer decided to withdraw the product from the market Feb. 10, citing the negative effect of the game on his life.

The game has a simple premise, wherein the player has only to hit the screen which makes the bird flap its wings, and propels it upward. The player then has to avoid pipes, keeping a certain height by tapping, without hitting any of the barrier. An industry insider said that a game could have been developed in one day. The game's background changes after the player has played two rounds of games, to avoid visual fatigue.

According to the Sina technology web portal, another major appeal of the game was the absence of paid properties or any other charge, as it derived income from built-in ads and generated US$50,000 of ad income daily, as its download volume topped 50 million, according to Nguyen Ha Dong, the game's Vietnamese developer.

Flappy Bird had been popular on Facebook and Twitter for half a year before its recent foray into China, where it started to skyrocket from Jan. 27, when PewDiePie, a social-networking aficionado, posted a run-through video of the game, which attracted 5.4 million hits in a short period of time.

According to the UK tabloid Mirror, before removing the game Nguyen tweeted, "Press people are overrating the success of my games. It is something I never want. Please give me peace."