Flappy Bird's new owners try to clear confusion about its zombified mobile comeback, all while ignoring the big crypto-shaped elephant in the room
Sep. 19, 2024The Flappy Bird Foundation release a statement only kind of addressing “questions circulating online”
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Flappy Bird is coming back under some strange circumstances, and the mobile icon’s new owners havetriedto clear the air.
Flappy Bird was one of the games that sunk global productivity more than a decade ago, prompting its original creator, Dong Nguyen, to delist it over concerns about its addictive effects. That didn’t stop countless clones from popping up on every digital storefront, though basically all of them failed to reach Flappy Bird’s cloudy heights.
‘The Flappy Bird Foundation’ has now branded itself as a “team of passionate fans” that secured the rights to the infamous tap-to-flap game and are promising to bring it back better than ever with new characters, new modes, and on new platforms.
Things began to get a little weird when the internet did some sleuthing into the revival, though. The Flappy Bird Foundation acquired the rights from a company called Gametech Holdings, which, according tocourt documents, appears to have used Nguyen’s own public statements about abandoning the game to secure the trademark.
What was even more curious was a hidden"web-3" pageon the new Flappy Bird website that has since been taken down.Screenshotsof the page include text that reads: “The legendary Flappy Bird is back and will fly higher than ever on [cryptocurrency network] Solana as it soars into web 3.0.”
Dong Nguyen himself thenclarified that hewas not involved in the project, did not profit from its sale, and doesn’t support crypto either - leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.
The Flappy Bird Foundation has now issued a statement to respond to “questions circulating online,” but I can’t spot many solid answers in the couple of hundreds of words that it published.
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The group reemphasizes how they acquired the abandoned trademark and the rights to Piou Piou vs. Cactus (the game that inspired Flappy Bird), alongside a statement from Piou Piou creator Kek who’s also involved in the new project. “I love that through the Flappy Bird Foundation we are able to breathe new life into the game I built and inspired,” Kek writes.
“The mission of the Flappy Bird Foundation has always been to preserve and foster the Flappy Bird game and legacy for the community,” the post reads. The group have yet to address what’s going on with the game’s monetization and blockchain integration, or even allude to Nguyen’s apparent disapproval of the whole project, which is what most of the “questions circulating online” have been about.
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
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