Flappy Bird returns in a tangled web of cryptocurrency controversy

Remember Flappy Bird? You know, that mobile game that became an overnight sensation for its simple-yet-frustrating setup, and disappeared almost as quickly? I was never a fan, but I found myself fascinated by the original creator’s apparent lack of concern over a potentially lucrative game. Flappy Bird is back—but it’s not the same.

Last week a trailer for Flappy Bird was posted to YouTube by “The Flappy Bird Foundation.” The one-minute video is chock full of ridiculously epic orchestral music over news footage and web video covering the initial sensation, and the shocking decision by solo developer Dong Nguyen to de-list the lucrative game from mobile app stores.

The original game is being rebooted and re-released, complete with all the trappings of a slickly produced mobile game a decade after the 2013 original. There will be multiple levels. There will be cosmetics. There will be a Mario-style overworld.

Though it wasn’t indicated in the trailer, there will almost certainly be in-app purchases. The newly revamped game is billed as “AN EPIC ADVENTURE,” and it’s not clear whether that’s ironic or entirely sincere in describing a title with a single one-tap game mechanic.

In case it wasn’t obvious, the new Flappy Bird isn’t coming from the original developer. But how and why that happened is a longer story.

Nguyen famously ended his work on Flappy Bird in February of 2014 after its sudden breakout success, despite estimates of his mobile ad revenue totaling $50,000 US every day. The game reportedly took only three days to create—its “tap to make the bird flap” concept almost literally couldn’t be simpler. So clones of the game were already rampant, but Flappy Bird imitations and forgeries became widespread across the internet and mobile stores almost immediately.

Nguyen posted to Twitter about the cancellation, writing “I cannot take this anymore.” He later told Forbes that he was concerned about creating addictive behavior in Flappy Bird‘s players, with the straightforward solution being to simply take the game down. In August of 2014, Nguyen released a new game, Flappy Birds Family, on the Amazon Appstore for Amazon’s Fire tablets and Fire TV programs. Its focus on multiplayer and TV experiences seemed to address Nguyen’s concerns on mobile game addiction.

But Flappy Bird quickly fell out of the public eye after Nguyen removed the original game, despite becoming such a phenomenon that it inspired a Google Doodle and even an easter egg included on millions of Android phones. He seems to have abandoned both the game and its high profile on social media, preferring to stay relatively quiet and enjoy his work as an indie game developer. You have to admire someone who can ignore the siren song of flash-in-the-pan fame, not to mention the fortune he could have made by leaning into it.

Nguyen’s documented work on the original game grants him an automatic copyright on Flappy Bird in the US and many other countries. But he apparently cared so little for Flappy Bird that he never took steps to formalize or defend it.

In January of this year, a company named Gametech Holdings successfully filed to label the original copyright as abandoned and take over ownership. Searching through the USPTO database, it appears that the New York-based attorney hired by Gametech specializes in finding abandoned but potentially lucrative copyrights.

Dong Nguyen was apparently alerted of this action in November 2023, but never responded. Nguyen is a resident of Vietnam, so it’s possible that in the 10 years since the original game was taken down, he moved or was otherwise unable to answer the information sent to his public address or phone number. But given his apparent lack of concern for profiting from his creation, I’m inclined to think he simply didn’t care.

Gametech passed along the trademark to “The Flappy Bird Foundation,” which may or may not be the same people. (I genuinely don’t know what the connection is—Gametech might have planned a big re-release all along, or simply grabbed a valuable trademark and flipped it immediately.) Whoever they are, they appear to have spent 2024 ramping up for an “epic” reboot. The new game has a dedicated website describing its new game modes and characters.

It’s exactly the sort of flashy, attention-grabbing exploitation of IP that Nguyen never did. But it also includes something a little more concerning: a direct link to a Telegram address.

Telegram is an anonymous messaging service that has nearly a billion users. But its easy access to systems that can obfuscate phone numbers and identities makes it a popular choice for criminals and scammers, including those using automated bots. Telegram was recently in headlines as its CEO was arrested in France, on charges that include being an accessory to drug trafficking and the distribution of child pornography.

So, yeah, a high-profile game release with its only point of contact being a Telegram account is… unusual. But as journalists and regular web users dig into the promotional material, additional strange connections have been discovered. Security researcher Varun Biniwale found more pages on the site that aren’t immediately accessible from the landing page, including one that says the game will “fly higher than ever on Solana as it soars into Web 3.0.”

If you know anything about crypto, there are alarm bells blaring in your head right now. Solana is a blockchain platform used to create cryptocurrencies. “Web 3.0” is a buzzword encompassing crypto and NFT tech applied to conventional websites and services. There’s a lot to unpack here, but suffice it to say, there have been several attempts to combine cryptocurrency and NFTs with video games.

At best they’ve been unimpressive flops. More often, they’re obvious “rug pulls” designed to make a quick buck. At worst, they’ve devastated the economies of already-struggling communities in developing countries—and no, that’s not an exaggeration.

Perusing through more pages in the WordPress-based FlappyBird.org site, Biniwale was able to find even more info, including a playable web-based prototype of the game itself. He was even able to find the cloud-based XML files that the games are based on. And poking around in that code, he found the crypto hook.

Playing these versions of the game (which, again, are not publicly presented even though they’re accessible with a little digging) prompts users to connect Flappy Bird to various cryptocurrency wallets. Playing the game appears to generate crypto coins, which presumably can be sold and traded. The infrastructure for the actual cryptocurrency component doesn’t appear to be live, or at least it’s not operational yet.

The rabbit hole goes deeper. Biniwale found an API for the game in the code, and following that lead discovered a leaderboard, presumably populated by people who’ve been playing the game in a pre-release state. The leaderboard is filled with names that reference cryptocurrency, and many of them match “crypto influencers,” social media users who spread information on new cryptocurrencies.

Many crypto influencers have been accused, and sometimes convicted, of manipulating social media to “pump and dump” unregulated cryptocurrency and NFTs to reap massive financial gains. The names and handles Binwale found are not necessarily the people connected to those names. One of them is “Matthew Perry,” and it seems almost impossible that the late Friends actor is involved.

But several of the associated accounts follow the “official” Flappy Bird Twitter (X) account. The highest score on the uncovered leaderboard is named “Deez Nuts.” While it’s possible that this is a coincidence — it’s a joke and a meme, after all — “Deez” is a term associated with many NFT collections. Two such collections are associated with a company that has heavily promoted the new incarnation of Flappy Bird.

Since Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies effectively became mostly unregulated securities for holding and growing wealth rapidly, the crypto space has been filled with innumerable attempts to make “the next big thing” and a quick fortune. An association with cryptocurrency does not automatically mean a project is suspicious. But it’s inarguable that the unregulated nature of crypto and NFTs has made it a magnet for scams, heightened by the utility of unregulated cryptocurrency as a means of hiding wealth or illicit activity.

Even among those who still believe cryptocurrency is the future of economics, every new “coin” or NFT project now arrives with the specter of a potential rug pull hanging over it. A rug pull is a technique wherein the vast majority of a cryptocurrency or NFT — controlled by the initial creators and their partners — is quickly converted into conventional currency or other crypto. This leaves the initial investors outside of the controlling group with worthless crypto assets, their real money having vanished into the scheme.

Hypothetically, a great way to get a ton of interest in a new cryptocurrency or NFT would be to associate it with a smash-hit mobile game. If that game had been more or less forgotten a decade later, and it were possible to legally acquire the trademark and launch a legitimate reboot of the game, it would be an almost ideal vector for turning casual gamers into participants in an NFT or crypto system. And the high profile would inevitably attract the interest of the larger online crypto space, possibly spurring a huge amount of initial investment.

Again, this is all hypothetical, based on well-known rug pulls that have become a routine part of the crypto world. None of it is, in any way, an accusation towards any individual or group. Concerns over rug pulls and other scams have cast a shadow over pretty much any new cryptocurrency or NFT project for years, making it difficult for even legitimate businesses to enter the space without huge skepticism surrounding the decision.

The Flappy Bird Foundation says the new game will be available on the web in October and on app stores in 2025. Aftermath reports that original Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen tweeted for the first time in seven years last weekend. “No, I have no related [sic] with their game,” he says. “I did not sell anything. I also don’t support crypto.”