Angry Birds Dev Needs Big Success From Bad Piggies

[Timothy Chang]

Angry Birds Dev Needs Big Success From Bad Piggies

Rovio is hoping that its next game will help slingshot the company to new heights.

Angry Birds has had an impressive run since its release in 2009, netting developer Rovio more than $100 million in sales revenue. The company's subsequent releases, however, weren't runaway hits like Angry Birds, and analysts say that Bad Piggies needs to be just as successful in order to maintain Rovio's success.

Amazing Alex, the company's first non-Angry Birds game in more than two years, reached #1 on the download charts in July, but has since fallen outside the top 50. Angry Birds Space is also falling from top grossing lists. Angry Birds, by comparison, has served over a billion downloads, with 200 million monthly users at the end of 2011.

Finnish mobile analyst Tero Kuittinen says that Rovio needs another big hit like Angry Birds to keep its momentum. "Over the past two months, Rovio's revenue-generation ability has suddenly slipped badly," he says. "There is no doubt that the pig game will hit number 1 at launch. But it has to stay in top ten for half a year to erase the doubts that the fast fade of Amazing Alex has created.

"Rovio needs to re-establish its reputation for creating hits with legs."

Petri Jarvilehto, Rovio's head of gaming, calls Bad Piggies a "long term branding exercise". His hope is to see both Angry Birds and Bad Piggies established as strong, vibrant brands over the next three years, bolstered by both app downloads and merchandising in the form of stuffed animals, toys, and even branded playground equipment.

Bad Piggies and Bad Piggies HD are currently sitting at #1 and #2 on the iTunes charts respectively.

Source: Reuters [http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/angrybirds-piggies-idINDEE88P08I20120926]

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[BreakfastMan]

Eh, makes sense considering the runaway popularity of Angry Birds. I mean, no one wants to be known as a one-hit wonder, right? I know I would not. :\

 

[lancar]

We have a saying here in Sweden. It goes "mycket vill ha mer" (literal translation: much wants more).
While I can see that they'd want to maintain their momentum (because, really, why wouldn't they?) I think they should be happy they made a game that basically every smartphone in the whole damn world has. Selling zillions of copies of your game not good enough? Of course not, nobody wants to be a one-hit wonder, indeed.

Notch lamented Minecraft in a similar way, saying that he feared it'd be the height of his career right when it started. While I can somewhat symphathize (a little) with him as it more of a personal thing, I can't say I feel the same for Rovio. As long as they're making enough money to survive, make progress & remain profitable they should be satisfied because, as we all know, there's a craptonne of developers who crash and burn.

Strive to better yourself, but remain humble about it.


('course, I didn't verify anything and is basically all my own uninformed opinion)

 

[weirdee]

on one hand, sure, okay

on the other hand, they kind of milked the crap out of angry birds and left the rest as an afterthought

maybe they should have saved some of that momentum for other projects?

 

[Sevain]

There is simply no way for them to maintain their momentum. The notion of anyone being able to reliably recreate the exceptional success of Angry Birds on demand is unrealistic.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

His hope is to see both Angry Birds and Bad Piggies established as strong, vibrant brands over the next three years, bolstered by both app downloads and merchandising in the form of stuffed animals, toys, and even branded playground equipment.

I'd love to see Angry Birds Playground equipment. A big slingshot to fling kids at climbing frames, and see how many fat kids you can knock off. A sure fire hit.

 

[surg3n]

Hmmm, so they made $100 mil, out of more than a billion downloads... maths seems a bit screwy there, shouldn't they be making more than 10c per download?

I think they just quote whatever statistic suits them, ohh this sounds impressive, ohh this will make it sound like the biggest thing ever.

I shouldn't pay it too much mind, it is sourced article afer all... herp derp the follow up to Angry Birds has to make money so that Rovio make money like what they did with Angry Birds herp derp 100 million blah blah billions blah share price falling rapidly blah. You can't expect to be the new Elvis every single time, you can't expect people to just keep ploughing money into unoriginal ideas like Bad Piggies and Angry Birds. Maybe it's time for some new mobile gaming icons to take the spotlight. To me, Bad Piggies looks like every other indi physics puzzler - except made with a sickly smirk, because they know it'll make them millions.

Team Meat need to make a splash on iOS, introduce some original thinking, maybe a set of balls - because I'm sick of the shallow horseshit that passes for an iOS game these days. Binding of Isaac on iOS would have those piggies crawling back to mommy .

Except Ski Safari tho, that's pretty awesome for such a simple game.

 

[BrotherRool]

'"Rovio needs to re-establish its reputation for creating hits with legs."'

I think the key problem here is that that sentence should read
'Rovio needs to re-establish its reputation for creating a hit with legs'

They've never shown that their success is repeatable, just that they struck lucky once and capitalised on it well

 

[Varil]

:| Right now they're showing their inability to plan ahead. They hit the lottery, at just the right time, with just the right game. But, you don't plan to hit the lottery twice. You take your money and invest it. They talk about maintaining momentum, but, like a bird from a slingshot, once you're out in the field you have to use what you've got to keep moving. You don't get a second boost.

 

[chiefohara]

creating a hit with legs....

but the angry birds had no legs... they didn't even have wings!

 

[FEichinger]

Hmmm, so they made $100 mil, out of more than a billion downloads... maths seems a bit screwy there, shouldn't they be making more than 10c per download?

I think they just quote whatever statistic suits them, ohh this sounds impressive, ohh this will make it sound like the biggest thing ever.

All Angry Birds games are available for free in one way or another (at least on Android, no idea about the apple crowd). According to Google, the original free Angry Birds alone boasts "100,000,000 - 500,000,000" downloads from the Play.
Angry Birds space has a premium and a HD version. The former is priced at .79? here, the latter at 2.39?.
Free AB Space: 50,000,000 - 100,000,000 downloads.
Premium: 500,000 - 1,000,000 downloads.
HD: 10,000 - 50,000 downloads.

A large amount of the downloads are indeed 0c revenue. Thus, getting even just 10c per download is one hell of a feat on the social market.

 

[NLS]

Hmmm, so they made $100 mil, out of more than a billion downloads... maths seems a bit screwy there, shouldn't they be making more than 10c per download?

I think they just quote whatever statistic suits them, ohh this sounds impressive, ohh this will make it sound like the biggest thing ever.

All Angry Birds games are available for free in one way or another (at least on Android, no idea about the apple crowd). According to Google, the original free Angry Birds alone boasts "100,000,000 - 500,000,000" downloads from the Play.
Angry Birds space has a premium and a HD version. The former is priced at .79? here, the latter at 2.39?.
Free AB Space: 50,000,000 - 100,000,000 downloads.
Premium: 500,000 - 1,000,000 downloads.
HD: 10,000 - 50,000 downloads.

A large amount of the downloads are indeed 0c revenue. Thus, getting even just 10c per download is one hell of a feat on the social market.

And let's not forget that Apple probably takes a bite out of any sales too.
Rovio needs to be careful, one day the Angry Birds balloon may pop, and if they haven't made anything worthwhile by then, they're gonna take some heavy losses.

 

[surg3n]

Hmmm, so they made $100 mil, out of more than a billion downloads... maths seems a bit screwy there, shouldn't they be making more than 10c per download?

I think they just quote whatever statistic suits them, ohh this sounds impressive, ohh this will make it sound like the biggest thing ever.

All Angry Birds games are available for free in one way or another (at least on Android, no idea about the apple crowd). According to Google, the original free Angry Birds alone boasts "100,000,000 - 500,000,000" downloads from the Play.
Angry Birds space has a premium and a HD version. The former is priced at .79? here, the latter at 2.39?.
Free AB Space: 50,000,000 - 100,000,000 downloads.
Premium: 500,000 - 1,000,000 downloads.
HD: 10,000 - 50,000 downloads.

A large amount of the downloads are indeed 0c revenue. Thus, getting even just 10c per download is one hell of a feat on the social market.

I know what you mean, maybe it would be better if they said what that $100m was comprised of, or not comprised of. For instance, the free versions of Angry Birds would still have advertising revenue, I'm guessing they may have left that out. Also the in-app purchases. Would be interesting to see more detailed financial stuff on it, like I wonder how much money they make with the plushies and toys and playground stuff.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

and analysts say that Bad Piggies needs to be just as successful in order to maintain Rovio's success.

Well holy fucking shit. Who would have thought? Thank God we have analysts to figure this stuff out for us.

Thank you for pointing that out! :S Sometimes you can read just the most stupid shit! :/

 

[Alcaste]

If I wanted to play crush the castle I'd play crush the castle. I don't get how angry birds got so popular, and have managed to stay away from it thus far.

This game looks like it'll be no different. If I wanted to play one of the numerous flash vehicle building puzzlers out there... I'd play one of those.

 

[Sixcess]

Can't a game developer ever be happy with just making a good game, that people like, that gives them the money to make their next game, with a bit of profit on the side?

The MMO industry has been locked into this self destructive cycle for years now - pouring untold millions into developing 'the next WoW', and they fail every time, because WoW was a one in a million fluke. Like Minecraft. Like Angry Birds.

Other genres seem to be stuck in the same mindset - like EA chasing CoD numbers on everything (like the infamous 5 million sales target for Dead Space 3) These crazy expectations are the biggest threat the industry faces right now, and if studios and publishers don't rein in their expectations a little they're going to wreck themselves.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It's a fun diversion I'll give it that. However Angry Birds could only do one thing, albeit very well, but that one thing couldn't hope to last forever. Seems to me that the success of the first game was luck.

If Rovio want to stay Number One, they have to show they are capable of doing other things.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

If I wanted to play crush the castle I'd play crush the castle. I don't get how angry birds got so popular, and have managed to stay away from it thus far.

This game looks like it'll be no different. If I wanted to play one of the numerous flash vehicle building puzzlers out there... I'd play one of those.

My guess is that most people with iPads aren't the type of people to browse around looking for cash games, so the majority of the masses are blissfully unaware that Angry Birds is a most shameless rip-off.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

This is the kind of news that really reinforces just how we're getting older.

In the nineties, we didn't hear about profit margins or the financial woes of game devs and publishers, because we were all kiddies too busy actually playing the damn things to care about the man behind the curtain. It didn't help that gaming magazines at the time were mostly chunks of advertising held together by one or two reviews.

Today, that's all we ever hear about. Profit margins, sales numbers, concerns of profitability or viability, the whoring out of franchises just to maintain that *one* sweet spot in sales. Innovation is being thrown out to the wolves because, hey, the shareholders want their moolah back, and they want it with actual returns.

I have Bad Piggies, and it's pretty good. With slightly more involved mechanics, though, I don't know if it's going to be as much of a pick-up-and-play title. When we've reached the point where a gaming publisher has to desperately push the transmedia angle to keep up the profits, something's gone wrong.

Look at Rovio's catalog. Plush toys, cookbooks, storybooks for kids - playground accessories?! The fuck?! I mean, at this point, I'd just give up making games and I'd spend my life pushing the Red Bird's likeness all over the fucking place. Wasn't there a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade float of the guy, one or two years ago?

My point is, some companies seem able to maintain their success more easily than Rovio. Piss on Ubisoft for pushing out one AC after another, but the games aren't that bad overall. As for their use of transmedia approaches, the thing feels a lot more deliberate and thoughtful. The book associated with AC III was well-written, and some comics are very well put together. They're pushing it when it comes to apparel, but that's just my opinion.

Rovio's all "PLEASE BUY OUR PLUSHIES, PLEASE, PREES, PLZ. WE NEED THEM TO SURVIVE."