'Flappy Bird' 2014: Apple, Google Ban Apps Containing 'Flappy' In Title; Why?

Last week saw the death of one of the most popular phone games in recent memory. That may be an exaggeration but the meteoric rise of Flappy Bird led to many users playing the game addictively, trying to garner as many points without crashing into the green pipes. With its death came a popularity vacuum soon to be exploited by other game developers hoping to ride Flappy Bird's wave. But Google and Apple have joined forces to stop that from happening.


According to Tech Crunch,  the two companies have started rejecting games with the word "Flappy" in its name, which are for the most part Flappy Bird clones. Though until recently the clones have been doing well on the app charts, Google and Apple have decided to yank various games that bear striking similar to the now defunct bird game.
Ken Carpenter of Mind Juice Media took to Twitter to explain why his game, Flappy Dragon, was rejected from the App Store. Apple wrote to him, "We found that your app, and/or its metadata, contains content that could be misleading to users, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines." They added, "We found your app name attempts to leverage a popular app." Carpenter tweeted, "Which app? FB doesn't exist!?!?!"

But Apple is not alone. Google has also been dropping games with "Flappy" in the title. Carpenter explained to Tech Crunch what happened. "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." The game was removed within 24 hours without a "Fair Warning" notice from Google.
The Tech Crunch writer assumes that the issue may be one of trademark, since one of the top games on the chart, Flappy Bee, was renamed Jumpy Bee and remained available