The ups and downs and ups and downs of a controversial mobile game’s rebirth

A decade ago, a frustrating and seemingly slapped-together mobile game called “Flappy Bird” was on top of the world with tens of millions of downloads — until its creator decided that it was too toxic to exist.

Now, a group of “passionate fans” representing an organization called The Flappy Bird Foundation is preparing to rerelease the game for Android and iOS next year.

They even released a trailer promising a new “epic adventure” (the only “adventure” in the original game was resisting the urge to whip your phone through a window so “Flappy Bird” could never hurt you again).

But there are some red flags

Original creator Dong Nguyen, who once made ~$50k a day from in-game ads but took the game offline in 2014 after realizing that it had “become an addictive product,” is not involved.

• Legal sleuths discovered Nguyen was cut out entirely — the rights to “Flappy Bird” were seemingly acquired by arguing that Nguyen had “abandoned” the trademark.
• Meanwhile, a cybersecurity researcher Varun Biniwale uncovered evidence on the new game’s website that it is — or was, at some point — meant to have deep cryptocurrency integration, compounding the danger of it becoming an “addictive product” again.

Nguyen has since broken a seven-year social media hiatus to make it clear he did not sell the rights and does not support crypto.

This wouldn’t be the first time…

… a kid-friendly game veered wildly into crypto — decades-old virtual pet sensation “Neopets” attempted to transition to NFTs in 2021 until cooler heads (and a pronounced backlash) prevailed.

But, in the grand history of “Neopets,” that was nothing compared to the time one majority investor attempted to force the creators to turn it into a Scientology recruitment tool.