If you include the next few sentences it's clear that there was no suicide:
In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread. Nguyen
had committed suicide. Nintendo was suing him. He'd received
death threats. His refusal to speak fueled the speculation
even more.
It's a list of the rumors that were going around, and is terminated by a statement about his refusal to speak (at the time) which strongly implies that the suicide rumor was, well, just a rumor.
I see the flow you're talking about but IMO that second sentence is just too big and too bold. The paragraph seems to drop that bomb, inch away and then come back to discredit it rather than just spitting it out like, "rumors begun to spread that Dong had..."
Anyway, no sense in nit-picking but I would like to see a couple words rearranged. I really think he's a good guy and he seems to be someone worthy of the industry's admiration.
We need many, many more people like him in this world. (from what I know about him)
Ah, I see what you're concerned about. The implied structure there is something like:
In the wake of Flappy Bird's demise, rumors spread:
Nguyen had committed suicide; Nintendo was suing
him; he'd received death threats. His refusal to
speak fueled the speculation even more.
But their approach has more literary force, so I think what they did was a reasonable author's choice, not an editing error.
