Flappy Bird’s original creator says he has nothing to do with the new game

Last week, The Flappy Bird Foundation announced a game called Flappy Bird. But while the group has been framing it as the triumphant return of a classic mobile game, Flappy Bird’s original developer, Dong Nguyen isn’t calling it a comeback — in fact, he says he’s not involved at all.

Nguyen posted as much on X (for the first time since 2017!) this morning, saying he didn’t “sell anything.” The Flappy Bird Foundation wrote in the announcement it shared with press last week that it had “acquired the rights from Gametech Holdings, LLC,” which had secured the trademark from Nguyen, but it doesn’t appear as though that was the result of any dealings between him and the group.

Gametech filed in opposition of Nguyen’s Flappy Bird trademark in 2023, spotted X user Samperson. The filing came nearly a decade after Nguyen pulled the then-popular game and never released another version, and the US Patent and Trademark Office determined his trademark to be abandoned, terminating his claim to it in January.

The Flappy Bird Foundation didn’t say in its announcement that Nguyen was involved, but it certainly leans on nostalgia as it promotes the game. More than half of the game’s first trailer lingers on the game’s rise in popularity and the disappointment of its abrupt disappearance in 2013, before declaring that “In 2024, Flappy Bird will fly again.”

As for the crypto piece of this puzzle, cybersecurity researcher Varun Biniwale pointed out hidden pages from the Flappy Bird website that indicate there may be such a component in the game’s launch. One page that seems to have been removed (and is archived here) said Flappy Bird will “fly higher than ever on Solana as it soars into web 3.0,” and invited players to “build, create, play and stake to own.”

For now, Flappy Bird is listed as coming soon for iOS and Android. Just don’t expect it to be the Flappy Bird you knew — that, it seems, remains as gone as ever.