Rovio has made a killing out of its Angry Birds franchise, and today it announced a deal that points to how the mobile games maker is hard at work developing what could well be the follow up to that: it has bought Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of software developer Futuremark.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The team behind Futuremark Games Studio, based in Finland like… → Read More
The Mighty Eagle has landed! Released late last week, the latest edition of Rovio’s Angry Birds franchise was downloaded 10 million times in its first three days. Unfortunately since the announcement came by way of a tweet, it doesn’t include detailed data concerning platform penetration or the number of people who paid $.99 for the extra levels (I did). But 10 million in three days! → Read More
Bird-lovers and pig-haters, today is your lucky day: Rovio has finally pushed the button on the launch of its newest installation of its hugely successful Angry Birds franchise: Angry Birds Space.
The game — which Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka told us last week will be its biggest launch yet — is marked by new characters, a new physics engine and a whole new setting that will take the… → Read More
Curious how Rovio planned on dealing with physics in the forthcoming Angry Birds Space? I have been, too. If we presume that Rovio is playing by the physical laws of space, a lack of gravity fundamentally changes the game. But apparently, that’s the point.
Rovio took us to the international space station, courtesy of the video below of course, to show us a little bit about how the new version… → Read More
I’m not even going to pretend that you don’t know what Angry Birds is… that would be insulting to both you and the game. But do you know what Angry Birds Space is? Nah, I didn’t think so. And truth be told, I’m not quite sure what it is either.
According to Rovio, Angry Birds Space will be the biggest launch for the company to date. Remember what a big deal Angry Birds Rio was with that… → Read More
Angry Birds has just launched on Facebook, and developer Rovio is trying out a different business model that flocks together with other freemium games on the social network. Rather than make you pay $1 up front for a mobile download, there’s 4 new powerups that you can buy for cheap – just $1 for 20 uses.
By expanding its in-app purchases beyond the level-beating Mighty Eagle, Rovio could earn… → Read More
The nominations have been tabulated and the votes are in. Over 300,000 nominations were calculated across 20 categories. Along with our partners GigaOm and VentureBeat, we are very proud to announce the finalists for 2011′s best in technology. Voting begins now.
For 2011, we’ve added some new categories. Best Location App, Best Cloud Services and Biggest Social Impact join the Crunchies ranks… → Read More
Ready for this week’s tale of someone turning down an absurd mountain of money in exchange for their company?
According to a report by the New York Times, Rovio — makers of the Angry Birds series (and the accompanying heap of Angry Birds merchandise so plentiful that they’ve started opening up retail stores) — turned down $2.25 billion this past summer. The would-be buyer? Zynga. → Read More
With Angry Birds, Rovio found a way to transform normal, healthy people into raging bird-flinging addicts. This isn’t really that big of a deal — at least not in most cases — unless some shady app developers begin impersonating Rovio and selling fake apps on the Android Market.
Did I mention that some shady app developers have started impersonating Rovio and selling fake apps on… → Read More
In a little over two years of existence, the smartphone game Angry Birds is now a household name. A lesson in horizontal brand extension, Rovio “Mighty Eagle” Peter Vesterbacka wore an Angry Birds sweater and carried around a bouquet of Angry Birds mylar ballons, on not just one, but all days of the TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing conference.
He is in China because the sprawling country is Rovio’s… → Read More
As proven by the massive success of the Angry Birds plush line, the world has a hungry for real-world Angry Birds wares. No where is that more apparent than Beijing, where the halls of countless toy shops and electronics stores are filled foot to ceiling with sundry Bird-themed goods, from sweatshirts and jeans to candy and balloons. The catch? Rovio didn’t authorize any of it.
Where others may… → Read More
Well, Rovio doesn’t need much of an introduction: It’s the company behind the now ubiquitous game that features everybody’s favorite affronted and chafed birds. Back in September, a whopping month and a half ago, Rovio’s North American General Manager Andrew Stalbow revealed some brand growth stats at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, peeling back the curtain a bit.
As a testament to how… → Read More
If you at all thought that the Angry Birds phenomenon was fizzling out… well, you were wrong. Rovio itself is doing plenty to make the brand “as iconic as Nintendo’s Mario or Mickey Mouse,” with cookbooks and new games and plush toys galore.
But even outside of the company, Angry Birds is still a hit. Over in China, the Shenzhen Technology Co. built a tablet specifically for Angry Birds… → Read More
I caught up with Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle at Rovio, the creators of the successful Angry Birds franchise, yesterday at the Planet Of The Apps conference in London.
It wasn’t a huge secret, but I certainly didn’t know this: Vesterbacka tells me you will soon be able to buy Angry Birds-themed cookbooks; actual physical books and ebooks for Kindle, Nook and iPad. → Read More
Given that I don’t even really need to write an introduction for it, it goes without saying that Angry Birds is a massive, massive brand. It’s available for everything from iOS to the PS3, and just recently smashed through 350 million cumulative downloads.
The Angry Birds brand isn’t all about the software, though, by any means. In a Fireside Chat with MG this morning, Rovio’s North American… → Read More
As we announced last week, we’ve been busy securing some of the most exciting names in China for our Disrupt Beijing conference this October including Tencent Founder and CEO Pony Ma and Chinese entrepreneur and angel investor Lei Jun. But it wouldn’t be a TechCrunch event without bringing a little of that Silicon Valley magic too.
In selecting people to bring to China we wanted a mix of some… → Read More
Last night at the Webby awards, two little birds told me some interesting news about Angry Birds. Okay, it was actually a Mighty Eagle, founder Peter Vestebacka, and one of his product managers, Ramine Darabiha. The Angry Birds games now have been downloaded 250 million times across all mobile platforms.
So what’s next for Angry Birds? Vestebecka says that they are working on a new game called… → Read More
Despite the fact that Rovio launches a new version of Angry Birds or new episodes in what feels like rapid-fire succession, I’d assume the majority of serious Angry Birds fans blow through newly released levels in a day. No worries though, Rovio has already submitted a new episode of Angry Birds to Apple for approval, so it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be smashing pigs in “Mine… → Read More
Rovio, the Finland-based developer behind the extremely popular Angry Birds franchise, this morning announced on its blog that it has acquired a longtime partner, Finnish animation studio Kombo.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we understand there was a mix of cash and Rovio stock involved. → Read More
BERLIN– Yesterday at the Next 11 conference, I interviewed Rovio’s Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka on stage. You may know him as the man who brings us all different versions of Angry Birds, Angry Birds toys, possibly an Angry Birds movie, and– as you’ll see in the clip below– an Angry Birds line of hoodies.
He has a big announcement: Angry Birds downloads have topped 200 million. To put that in… → Read More
Ah, robots. When they’re not busy planning world domination, they apparently play Angry Birds just like the rest of us. OptoFidelity, a Finnish company that specializes in machine vision and optical measurement technology, in addition to other things I don’t understand, recently produced a physical robot that knows how to kill nasty green pigs.
It most certainly beats the crap out of this… → Read More
I ran into Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka again at SXSW 2011 and he was kind enough to give me the update since I saw him last at the Mobile World Congress. Dude is everywhere…and busy. Here’s the short version, but watch the video below to get the info straight from the Mighty Eagle himself! Reached 100 million downloads Angry Birds Rio arrives March 22 Raised 42 million in Series A… → Read More
Rovio, the Finnish entertainment media company who famously operates the Angry Birds franchise, has raised $42 million in Series A funding.
The round was co-led by Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures, the VC firm created by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, who will be joining Rovio’s board. ‘Super angel fund’ Felicis Ventures also participated.
Currently, Angry Birds is played by 40 million… → Read More
Rovio, the Finnish entertainment media company who famously operates the Angry Birds franchise, has raised $42 million in Series A funding.
The round was co-led by Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures, the VC firm created by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, who will be joining Rovio’s board. ‘Super angel fund’ Felicis Ventures also participated.
Currently, Angry Birds is played by 40 million… → Read More
Idosyncratic Rovio, the company behind the smash hit Angry Birds game, likes to do things differently. Today they live streamed a press announcement about the game’s latest achievements, which featured an indie band, The Ran.
The main announcement was about “Bad Piggy Bank”. This is an in-game payment model for Angry Birds on Android which lets users either remove the ad on the free version of… → Read More
In an on-stage interview at Le Web 10 in Paris, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed talked about one of the most popular games ever to hit mobile phones all around the world: Angry Birds.
Can you share some of the latest numbers?
We’ve sold 12 million copies of Angry Birds to date, and we’ve seen about 30 million downloads of the free app. The majority of revenues comes from the iPhone, and a lot of that is… → Read More
Angry Birds, the best-selling mobile game from Europe’s Rovio, is turning into quite a cultural phenomenon. No doubt, you’ve seen the viral video featuring the angry birds and pigs in peace treaty talks – I’ve embedded it below in case you’ve been living under a rock the past few days and haven’t seen that one yet.
Here’s another that’s bound to rack up a significant amount of views in the next… → Read More
Got Angry Birds Fever (I guess calling it “Angry Bird Flu” might be a bad idea), but can’t muster up the energy to build a man-sized Angry Birds costume? Want something a bit more portable? Don’t fret. We’ve known for a while now that Rovio Mobile was working on a line of plush toys based on their ever-frustrated Birds. Hell, we’ve seen the things a bunch of… → Read More
We are somewhat obsessed here with the iPad game Angry Birds (and really, who isn’t?). When we first caught wind that the Finnish company behind the game, Rovio, will be branching out into movies and plush toys, we were intrigued. When we obtained photographic evidence of one of these toys, we were ecstatic. (Not Dancingerick.com ecstatic, but pretty excited nonetheless).
Now we’ve got a… → Read More
According to Variety, Rovio, the company that makes ‘Angry Birds‘ has been shopping the beloved iPhone game around Hollywood, and currently rolling out some franchising deals.
“Rovio, the Finnish creator of the hit iPhone and iPad game, which has sold more than 6.5 million downloads, wants to turn the property into a major franchise that crosses over to other platforms — from TV shows and movies… → Read More
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