Fans of ultra-viral mobile gaming hit Flappy Bird who were stunned by the game's sudden removal from the iOS App Store 10 years ago were probably even more stunned by last week's equally sudden announcement that Flappy Bird is coming back with a raft of new characters and game modes. Unfortunately, the new version of Flappy Bird seems to be the result of a yearslong set of legal maneuvers by a crypto-adjacent game developer intent on taking the "Flappy Bird" name from the game's original creator, Dong Nguyen.
"No, I have no related with their game. I did not sell anything," Nguyen wrote on social media over the weekend in his first post since 2017. "I also don't support crypto," Nguyen added.
"Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed," Nguyen said in a 2014 interview after removing the game from mobile app stores. "But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It's gone forever."
So how can another company release a game named Flappy Bird without Nguyen's approval or sale of the rights? Court filings show that a company called Gametech Holdings filed a "notice of opposition" against Nguyen with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in late 2023, seeking to invalidate his claim on the "Flappy Bird" name. When Nguyen, who lives in Vietnam, didn't respond to that notice by November, the US Patent and Trademark Office entered a default judgment against him and officially canceled his trademark in January, allowing Gametech to legally claim the name.
But without copyright, how will artists profit from and protect their works‽The main crypto-related project listed on the 1208 Productions site is a set of NFTs based around the "Deez Nuts" joke/brand. The webpage for that project also lists Roberts (aka "Papa Nut") as a partner of The Doge Pound NFT project.
This satire article is a little too on the nose.
Satire is a horse and they keep hitting it with clubs years after its heart stopped beating.
The new FlappyBird.org webpage doesn't mention any of those crypto links publicly. But web developer and cybersecurity researcher Varun Biniwale found quite a few such references while digging into the site's hidden, unlinked content. That includes a (now-deleted, but archived) page promising the new Flappy Bird will "fly higher than ever on Solana as it soars into Web 3.0.
Biniwale's discoveries also include a rough WebGL version of the game, which has references to a $FLAP Token that can be stored on a linked crypto wallet through the TON Network.
They had Web3 shit prepared but hid then removed it. I wonder if they were smart enough to realize it would be horribly received and decided to pivot to a more normal game (i.e. stuffed with regular microtransactions).
