The year was 2014. Apple was moving to big screens with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Motorola was making a big splash with the immortal Moto G (2014), OnePlus was making a name for itself with the OnePlus One. Xiaomi hadn’t sold a mobile phone in Spain yet. And everyone was hooked on a simpler game than a single board: ‘Flappy Bird’. Everyone was playing, everyone was excited. That was the game at the time.

On February 9, 2014, its creator pulled it off the market. Now, ten years later, ‘Flappy Bird’ is back and surrounded by controversy. So much so that its creator broke his Twitter silence to disavow it.

Let’s go piece by piece.

‘Flappy Bird’ Screenshots | Image: Xataka Mobile

The ‘Flappy Bird’ case. At this point, talking about ‘Flappy Bird’ is like saying the sky is blue, but let’s take a look at its brief history. ‘Flappy Bird’ was created by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen. It was released on May 24, 2013, and quickly became the most downloaded game in all app stores. You might have expected the game to stick around because it was so successful, but no. It was the opposite.

‘Flappy Bird’, which featured a small advertising banner at the bottom of the screen, was earning its creator up to $50,000 a day (daily!), but the developer was worried. As he told Forbes magazine in 2014, “Flappy Bird is designed to be played for a few minutes when you’re comfortable.” […] “But it has become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. The best way to solve this problem is to remove Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”

“New Flappy Bird” | Image: Xataka

This led to all sorts of clones popping up, and eBay was forced to remove ads for phones selling Flappy Bird. There was an iPhone 5s that was up for bid for $99,900, but eBay slammed on the brakes and cancelled the bid, claiming the phones needed to be reset before they could be sold.

What happened next? The developer hasn’t sat still. In 2017, he released a new game called ‘Ninja Spinki Challenges’ and in 2022, he updated the page for his company, .GEARS. That’s the last we know about him. Beyond that, Dong Nguyen hasn’t tweeted a single thing since 2017. Complete and utter silence until yesterday when he tweeted that the new ‘Flappy Bird’ had nothing to do with him and coincidentally, he doesn’t agree with the crypto world.

New Flappy Bird? On September 12, the Flappy Bird Foundation announced that ‘Flappy Bird’ will be released as a reboot of the original. Behind this project is Gametech Holdings, a company that acquired the ‘Flappy Bird’ trademark because its original creator abandoned it. The trademark was abandoned, Gametech Holdings claimed it and apparently eventually acquired it without paying Nguyen anything. The entire process is recorded, and the creator himself confirmed the following on his Twitter profile:

“No, I have no affiliation with your game. I did not sell anything. I also do not support cryptocurrencies.”

“New Flappy Bird”. It’s similar to the original, but it includes all the evils of mobile games aimed at making money at all costs, and the darker world of crypto. While the original game was very simple, this new version features a variety of maps, bird skins, loot boxes, a premium currency, a Twitter account followed by Pavel Durov (Telegram’s founder), TON (Telegram’s blockchain), and Notcoin. another cryptocurrency project play to win gamesThere are also records that he previously followed many accounts related to the crypto world.

Screenshots of the mini-app that can be found on the Telegram channel | Caught: Xataka

If we look at the Telegram channel, we will see that it has linked to a mini-app, the ‘Flappy Bird’ game seen in the announcement video. This experience is called Flap-A-TON and, as explained in the app, it is a special Telegram event that will allow you to claim the points you earn when Flappy Bird is launched on Web2 and Web3. At a certain point, a TON wallet will need to be linked in order to claim points. As explained in the bot, this game is “a preview of the full game that will be released at the end of the year”. It is white and in a bottle.

This page is private but accessible from the Wayback Machine. Here we see how Web3, Solana and their bidding game are discussed | Capture: Xataka

So, without seeing how this all ends, everything seems to indicate that the new ‘Flappy Bird’ is a game play to win It has its roots in the crypto world. In fact, every game you play has a little bird feature. skin with necklaces, hats, colors, etc. that vaguely smell of NFTs. What’s more, it’s possible to find pages on their website via the Wayback Machine where they talk about “how artists, developers, and creators can create, play, and profit from the iconic ‘Flappy Bird’ IP.”

However, it’s not Flappy Bird. It’s something else.

Pictures | Xataka

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