Ondrej Holzman The most famous iPhone game? Angry Birds, fired immediately by most who have anything to do with an apple phone. It was the game game from the Rovio workshop that became a huge hit, earning millions of dollars and its popularity continues to rise. Behind the innocent-looking story, however, lies a well-thought-out strategy that actually saved the Finnish developers from bankruptcy.
But let's start from the beginning. It all started with a game development competition organized by Nokia and Hewlett-Packard in 2003, won by three Finnish students. One of them, Niklas Hed, decided to start a team with the help of his uncle Mikael. Originally the group was called Relude, the renaming to the current Rovio came only two years later. At that time, the team also lost Mikael Hed, but he returned in 2009 and began to create the future game hit with his colleagues.
In 2009, Rovio was on the verge of bankruptcy and the team was hard at work strategizing how to get out of the bad situation. One of the biggest obstacles was the number of platforms on the market. If the Finns wanted to create a successful application, they would have to optimize it for dozens of mobile devices with different operating systems, and that was not exactly easy, especially with such a small number of employees. Everything was cracked by the iPhone, a relatively new product that had one huge advantage from the developers' point of view - the App Store.
At Rovio, they immediately took this into account and began to focus exclusively on the Apple phone. The production of just one version of the game would radically reduce costs, and in addition, the App Store looked possible success, where the issue of payments and distribution did not have to be solved. But the beginnings were understandably not easy.
"Before Angry Birds, we created over 50 games," admits thirty-year-old Niklas Herd, one of the co-founders. “We knew we were capable of making the best game in the world, but the problem was the amount of equipment available and how to optimize it. However, Angry Birds was our most thoughtful project,” adds Herd, who is behind the elaborate strategy.
At the same time, the creation of the game, where the main actors are angry birds, was a bit of a coincidence. Every day, several proposals for how the new title could look like were born in the workshops. However, it was waiting for someone to come up with a truly revolutionary idea. Finally, a relatively innocent screenshot created by Finnish game designer Jaakko Iisal caught everyone's attention. He, as was his custom, spent his evenings with his favorite games, constantly pondering what might appeal to the general public.
Colleagues and Iisalo himself have already presented several proposals, but they were all dismissed by Rovio management for being too complicated, too simple or too boring. Once Iisalo sat down at his computer, he fired up Photoshop and began to realize a sudden inspiration. He drew round birds with yellow beaks, thick eyebrows and a somewhat crazy expression. They didn't have legs, but that didn't stop them from moving.
"At the same time, it didn't seem unusual to me, nor did I mention it to my wife," recalls Iisalo. It was even more of a surprise when the next day his proposal met with success among his colleagues. It was obvious that it still needed to be properly worked on, but the birds caught their attention with a squinting expression on their faces. "As soon as I saw them, I liked them," Niklas Hed revealed. "I immediately felt like I wanted to play this game."
And so, in March 2009, development began on a new game venture. At that time, the name had not yet been invented, but Rovio was well aware that if they wanted to somehow compete with existing applications (at that time there were 160 of them in the App Store), they had to come up with a strong brand that would give their project a face. That's why they finally named the game Angry Birds and not "Catapult", Mikael revealed the thought process at the time, who was finally able to fully apply his business knowledge, which he acquired during his studies at the University of New Orleans.
When programming, the Finns used experience from their successes and failures of previous titles and took inspiration from organized sessions where they observed users playing games and monitored what was difficult for players, what they enjoyed and what they found boring. The lists of these findings were thousands of words long and served as a good basis for creating a large game piece, but one thing was the most important. The developers knew that each level had to feel achievable. "It's important that users don't feel penalized," says Niklas. "If you don't level, you blame yourself. Then if the little pigs laugh at you, you say to yourself, 'I have to try this again.'"
Another important point that they made at Rovio was that the game could be played in short intervals without significant waiting. For example, while waiting for the train or in the queue for lunch. "We wanted you to be able to play the game instantly, without long loading times," Niklas continued to speak. It was this idea that led to the creation of the main device of the entire game - the catapult/slingshot. Even beginners immediately know how to handle it.
The success of all Angry Birds is built on simplicity. A great use of the touch screen and virtually no instructions or hints ensure really fast mastering of the controls right from the first start. Even small children can often control the game faster than their parents.
However, so that we don't keep walking around the hot mess, let's talk about what a successful pun is all about. On the right side of the screen, grinning green pigs are hidden under various structures made of wood, concrete, steel or ice. On the left side are the already mentioned Iisal's birds. Your task is to launch them with a slingshot and hit all the enemies in the form of green pigs with them. You get points for eliminating pigs, but also for demolishing structures, after which you are rewarded with the appropriate number of stars (from one to three). You need one of your fingers to control it so you can stretch the slingshot and shoot the bird.
However, it's not just about that, otherwise the game wouldn't be so popular. It is not enough to simply shoot the bird and wait for what it will do. Over time, you will learn which type of bird (there are seven in total) applies to which material, which trajectories are most effective and which strategy to choose for which level. Of course, this will take some time, and you can still discover new and new tricks.
"We knew the game had to be simple, but not too simple," said Niklas, alluding to the fact that everyone, beginners and experienced, should stick with the game. "That's why we started creating new species of birds that act on certain materials. However, we didn't tell the users that, everyone had to figure it out for themselves." That's also why birds were chosen as the main characters, because there are a large number of species. Iisalo chose the green pigs purely because he thought they were funny.
However, not only Rovia's excellent strategic plan has contributed to Rovia's success, but Chilingo as well. Under her banner, Angry Birds reached the market. Chilingo has a good relationship with Apple and has already managed to make several unknown brands famous. However, credit goes to Rovia at least for choosing Chilingo in the first place.
"We invented everything so that we don't have to rely on luck," says Ville Heijari, Head of Marketing. “You can make a game according to your vision and then wait if you're lucky and people will buy it. But we didn't want to rely on luck."
And it really doesn't look like it's all about luck. Two years have passed and Angry Birds has become the most popular iPhone app. They are installed on the vast majority of devices, and when you consider the over 300 apps available, this is a more than solid feat. Globally, 200 million minutes of Angry Birds are played every day, which is significantly close to the number of people who watch prime-time TV in the US.
"Suddenly they are everywhere," says James Binns, chief executive of games media company Edge International. “There have been multiple iPhone games that have sold a lot, but this is the first game that really has everyone talking. It reminds me of the Rubik's Cube. People also played with her all the time,” Binns recalled the now legendary toy.
As of last December, twelve months after the release of Angry Birds, 12 million copies were sold. About 30 million users then downloaded the limited free version. Of course, the biggest profits come from iPhones, advertising also works well. The game is also popular on Android. On other smartphones (including Android), Angry Birds was downloaded a million times in the first 24 hours alone. Versions for game consoles should now be worked on. But you can already play on Mac or PC.
However, it does not end with the games themselves. "Angry Birds mania" affects all industries. In the shops, you can find toys, covers for phones and laptops, or comics with motifs of angry birds. And to top it off, Angry Birds has something to do with the movie. The game Angry Birds Rio has already appeared in the App Store, which is intended to attract viewers to the animated movie Rio, whose heroes Blue and Jewel, two rare macaws, are in the new version of the game.
As a final summary, since the release in 2009, when Angry Birds contained 63 levels, Rovio has released another 147. All in free updates, keeping Angry Birds at the top of the charts. However, there is also a special thematic version, where updates are regularly published regarding various events such as St. Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day.
Nicely written article.
I think you got it wrong with angry birds: rio. No such film is being made. It's not for the occasion of the film about angry birds, but for the occasion of the premiere of the film Rio, which is also about birds (now I think it should be in cinemas) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1436562/
It would be possible to mention the year in which the competition took place in the beginning of the article, for example. There are only relative years like 'two years later' and no specific ones. The first specific year is 2009, when he returned to the company, but that does not say anything about how long the company has existed.
I appreciate the effort, but for my taste too much glorification and several quite fundamental fabrications, e.g. the fact that in 2009 it was on the verge of collapse. Since 2006, they have been working as contractors for big publishers such as EA or Vivendi and they certainly did not do badly. In addition, the article completely lacks the sources of individual quotations, in addition, some parts of the article are very similar to an interview I once read with them...