Not long after the curious Flappy Bird revival with its bizarre new owners, the game’s original creator Dong Nguyen has publicly disavowed the project – noting he hasn’t sold the game.

To recap: the original owner of the Flappy Bird trademark allowed his trademark / ownership to expire, after which 1208 Productions – whose legal name is Gametech Holdings LLC, filed a trademark against him and like most legal gray areas can now technically claim ownership to the IP.

After the new revival was thoroughly condemned on social media as a strange Web3 product that we now know has no association with its original owner, Nguyen has publicly condemned the revival.

“No, I have no related with their game,” Nguyen said on social media. “I did not sell anything. I also don’t support crypto.”

Trademark law is unfortunately and frequently in favor of parties that have more money and/or lawyers, so when Nguyen didn’t defend the challenge to his expired trademark, Gametech was given the mark instead.

The original Flappy Bird was released over a decade ago and went viral ironically. It got so popular Nguyen got tired of the new fame and delisted off smartphone app stores.

It remains to be seen what the supposed revival for Flappy Bird will look like in its totality – the current plan is to release the new version of the game later this year for web browsers with a full relaunch with dedicated apps on iOS and Google Play set for 2025.