‘Flappy Bird’ Relaunches Without Crypto Elements After Divisive Telegram Return

Widespread cellular recreation Flappy Fowl launched within the Epic Video games Retailer for Android this week, however the recreation’s newest reboot doesn’t include any crypto parts—regardless of plans to launch a token tied to the now-shuttered Telegram model.

The faucet-to-flap recreation maintains its traditional mode that asks customers to navigate a pixelated fowl by means of a steady subject of pipes, in addition to introduces a quest mode within the “Internet-2 solely” launch.

“The Flappy Fowl app obtainable on Epic Video games Retailer won’t ever have any Web3 parts, and is supported solely by advertisements and in-app purchases,” a press release concerning the recreation’s launch reads.

First launched in 2014, the viral recreation amassed greater than 50 million downloads earlier than being faraway from the App Retailer by creator Dong Nguyen. The developer stated he felt responsible for creating such an addictive recreation, and didn’t wish to face the general public scrutiny about it.

Final September, a brand new Flappy Fowl Basis—which had acquired the trademark to the sport—introduced it again as a Telegram crypto recreation. At the moment, a spokesperson for the Basis informed Decrypt that Telegram’s platform aligned “completely with our imaginative and prescient for bringing Flappy Fowl into the Web3 house.”

However the recreation’s launch and accompanying mining marketing campaign for an eventual FLAP token on The Open Community (TON) have been met with broad criticism, together with from Nguyen, who ended a seven-year posting hiatus on X (previously Twitter) to distance himself from the Telegram undertaking.

“No, I’ve no [relation] with their recreation. I didn’t promote something,” he posted. “I additionally do not assist crypto.”

Moreover, regardless of the success of many tap-to-earn video games as mini apps on Telegram’s messaging app final yr, Flappy Fowl didn’t seem to amass the hundreds of thousands of gamers that earlier video games like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat did.

Earlier this month, the Telegram model ended its mining part, a interval through which customers can play the sport to earn eventual rewards. And whereas the bio for the Telegram bot nonetheless mentions a “future airdrop,” formal information of a token launch is nowhere to be discovered.

The official X account for the Flappy Fowl Basis made it obvious that there isn’t a token at current time, in addition to no present Web3 recreation.

“There may be at the moment no official Flappy Fowl token. Any token claiming to be the official Flappy Fowl Token is a rip-off and has no affiliation with Flappy Fowl,” the account posted on Tuesday. “Any Web3 recreation claiming to be the official Flappy Fowl Web3 recreation is a rip-off.”

Whereas the Basis’s account distanced the most recent model of the sport from Web3 by utilizing its newer, little-followed Flappy Fowl Publishing subsidiary’s account to announce its launch, it didn’t definitively rule out future Web3 bulletins.

As an alternative, it informed followers that “any information or bulletins round Flappy Fowl Web3 initiatives shall be shared from this account.”

A consultant for the Flappy Fowl Basis didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s request for remark.

Edited by Andrew Hayward