HELSINKI |
(Reuters) - Mobile gaming firm Rovio said on Wednesday its hit game Angry Birds had reached a record 500 million downloads in less than two years since its launch.
"It's more than any game ever before," Rovio's marketing chief Peter Vesterbacka told a conference in Helsinki.
Unlike most mobile-game crazes, Angry Birds -- in which players use a slingshot to attack pigs who steal the birds' eggs -- has stayed at the top of the charts since it was launched for Apple's iPhone on Dec 11, 2009.
Vesterbacka said the company's next aim was to reach one billion fans globally, on devices including mobile phones and computers.
The gaming company is expanding the brand across traditional merchandising, to items such as toys and baby products, and is taking the birds to the big screen with film studios.
Earlier this year, Rovio raised $42 million from venture capital firms in an investment co-led by Accel Partners, which previously backed Facebook and Baidu, and Skype founder Niklas Zennstroem's venture capital firm Atomico Ventures.
Rovio was founded in 2003 after three students including Niklas Hed -- CEO Mikael Hed's cousin and now Rovio's COO -- won a game-development competition sponsored by Nokia Oyj and Hewlett-Packard CO. It changed its name from Relude in 2005.
(Reporting By Tarmo Virki; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)
Over all the users of smart phones all around the world, who never heard about the game and application Angry Bird? This article from Reuters.com describes the success story of Rovio, creator of the game. I must confess I am part of the 500 millions downloaders, as a student this can be a good way to spend some time. However, this success is not the only one, more and more companies begin to considerate this kind of new market created by the increase of Smartphone (AppStore, Android among others). Shazam, Deezer, Facebook, Google + are some few examples of them. Even the Church launched their own application.
According to me, it proves one important thing: new kind of companies appear and can win a lot of money thanks to new technologies and the development of Internet and Smartphone use. During my internship in the USA, I met two examples of this new trend: one person who wanted to create a kind of game as application for Iphone, and another one who wins money just by posting some articles and links on his Twitter. Thanks to his great number of followers, some companies were paying him just to put some ads.
Is it a good way to earn its living? It’s hard to tell, but obviously as a CEO of a company you now have to use Twitter, create an app, be on Facebook and spread the name of your brand. Rovio, created by three students is an example of success story you can have thanks to these new concepts.
Now I just hope you won’t think I’m always playing to Angry Birds during your class.
Matthieu Demey
