Williams scrapped all Flappy Bird's written app reviews in iTunes before the game was deleted; this gave more than 68,000 written reviews to a database, and he was kind enough to share a CSV file of that information with Mashable. Using it, when the app began to gain traction, its ratings and the overall user feeling around it, we were able to look for trends.
The pure success of the game has resulted some critics to accuse Nguyen of using shady practices— including purchasing traffic or paying for fake reviews — to assist Flappy Bird climb up the app charts. However, after looking at the data that matches when Flappy Bird started building word-of-mouth buzz, we can't discover any indications of improper reviews or ratings being manipulated.
The fact that Flappy Bird was not a scam— but a spectacle that occurred naturally from nowhere — only makes its triumph much more amazing and its withdrawal from the App Store much more bittersweet.
infographic by: www.startapp.com
