It’s new, it’s aggravating, and it’s severely annoying if the people around haven’t played it. The first thing that pops into most peoples’ head is the new app, Flappy Bird.

The goal of the game is to make a tiny bird fly in between two green pipes by tapping the screen for as long as the player can. Depending on how many pipes the bird flies between, the player can achieve different medals such as bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Sounds easy enough, right?

Some people can’t get past the first set of pipes. They could play for twenty or so minutes and still not get that much desired point. So, the question is, why is this game so difficult and why does it make so many people so angry while playing it?

This isn’t the first game to bring so much attention to itself. Some of Flappy Bird’s predecessors are Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Dots, and Temple Run.

What these games have in common is so small that most people overlook it: the game is simple. It has a simple design and a simple goal. It doesn’t require any skill or any knowledge, it’s just a game. And that’s why people play: it’s a game. It allows people a cure for boredom, a distraction.

Unfortunately, this game has ended marriages and has resulted in the destruction of devices such as phones and tablets. Somehow, however, the maddening app has an average of four stars out of five on the Apple app store. Most reviews are rants about the bird and its stupidity, how the game is addicting, and how life-changing it is. Some people have even called it “pure evil.”

This game, like the others, is severely addicting. A person could spend hours and hours trying to get past 12 points, and before they know it, what was meant to be a simple five minute game has turned into a day wasted.

Flappy Bird is no longer available for download on the Apple app store or on Google Play. Reasons for the removal of the app are: it has ruined the creator,  Nguyen Ha Dong’s, life (according to Fox news), possible lawsuits (according to IBNLive), and Dong has received multiple death threats (according to Yahoo news). Dong said that the removal of the game had nothing to do with legal issues, it was just that he couldn’t take it any longer.