Angry Birds creator Rovio raises $42 million

Played by 40 million monthly active users

[coopster]

Hello, my name is coopster, and I'm an Angry Bird addict.

Angry Birds creator Rovio raises $42 million [reuters.com]

Mikael Hed, chief executive and co-founder, told Reuters in August he planned to turn Angry Birds into a fully fledged entertainment brand in the way Walt Disney's Pixar has done with characters from Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.

[wheel]

Awesome for him.

I was impressed with his monetization ideas. Like drugs, the first one's free :). Gives you the software for free with a lot of levels. You get addicted, hit the tougher levels, and they allow you to buy an 'eagle' for a buck or so. The eagle comes along and smashes through your difficult level.

[Sierra_Dad]

I just donated $400+ to angry birds.

When I wasn't watching closely, a mobile adwords campaign start to pick up in impressions and clicks.

Somehow, adsense thought Angry Birds was related to my keywords (it ain't) and I got a bunch of useless clicks.

While it seems like Android mobile ads should be a natural fit for promoting Android apps, so far they are not. Of the clicks I've gotten, exactly 0% have installed the free demo app. That's right, 0%. The same keywords have paid off handsomely when people search the Android Market.

[Demaestro]

I too am an addict but I refuse to use an Eagle.

On a side note you can use the same physics engine that angry birds uses to do stuff in HTML5... it is ported for a few platforms now, flash included.

It is called box2d I have been playing around with it and it is pretty freaking awesome to create objects that have the physics all sorted out and be able to interact with them all without flash.

[coopster]

That is cool, D. Where did you discover that and how did you find out it was used in the Angry Birds app?

[Demaestro]

A guy I do work with used it for a Flash game he developed and we played around with it on a webpage for his games.

I knew Angry Birds used it because the head of Angry Birds spoke at the GDC and the guy from Box2D asked why Box2D wasn't in the credits for the game and Angry Birds guy admitted that it should and would be.

Erin: “Hi Peter, could you tell me which physics engine Angy Birds uses?”
Peter: “Box2D”
Erin: “Great. Would you consider giving credit to Box2D in your game?”
Peter: “Yes, of course”
Erin: “Thank you! By the way, I am Erin Catto the creator of Box2D”
Peter: “Great! I would like to talk to you after the session”

[geek.com...]

If you want to see how far we have got with it so far in HTML5 you can here:

dewdropgames.com (use Chrome)

[trillianjedi]

Brilliant execution. Highly investable company. Will continue to do very well I'm sure.

Right timing for an A-round too. They'll have had the VC's around their little fingers (claws?).

[StoutFiles]

Angry Birds took an above-average, unoriginal idea (Crush the Castle) and put it on a device aching for a fun, simple game that implemented touch controls. Congrats to them. Sometimes being first out of the box is best.

The idea that this developer can continue this streak with more money will be interesting to see. He'll need to use Angry Birds as a promoter of any future products.

As far as being one of the best, I'd say he's talented but very lucky. Developers like Epic Games who made Infinity Blade will be taking over sooner than later on the app store. And as for simple games like Angry Birds, as soon as HTML5 becomes more widespread, people will be going to websites devoted to playing these games on their Apple products for free.

[Demaestro]

lawls

Angry Nerds:
[atlassian.com...]

You have to click the screen each time a "nerd" loads