Last week, the Flappy Bird Foundation announced that the mobile game "Flappy Bird" is coming back. However, Dong Nguyen, the original developer of Flappy Bird, did not say that this is a return, and said that he is not involved at all and has no connection with the game.
Nguyen posted on X (his first post since 2017) that he is not "selling anything and does not support cryptocurrency." In an announcement shared with the media last week, the Flappy Bird Foundation wrote that it had "acquired the rights from Gametech Holdings, LLC," which acquired the trademark from Nguyen, but this does not appear to be the result of a transaction between him and the organization.
X user Samperson discovered that Gametech filed an opposition to Nguyen's Flappy Bird trademark in 2023. The USPTO determined that his trademark was abandoned and terminated his claim to the trademark in January of this year.
The Flappy Bird Foundation did not say that Nguyen was involved in its announcement, but they paid considerable attention to mobilizing players' nostalgia when promoting the game.
The Flappy Bird Foundation’s hidden website page suggests that cryptocurrency may play a role in the game’s release. In a blog post on September 12, researcher Varun Biniwale found a page on the site that has now gone offline and said that Flappy Bird “will fly higher than ever before on Solana as it soars to Web 3.0.”
The page also added that it will be a “Web3 game” with a “play to earn” feature, and also mentioned “stake to own” and “free airdrops.” (Cointelegraph)