Angry Birds Smashes the Billion-Download Mark

John Funk

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Dec 20, 2005
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Angry Birds Smashes the Billion-Download Mark

1 in 7 people on Earth now has Angry Birds.

Rovio has announced that the games in its wildly popular mobile franchise about ill-tempered avians have been downloaded a total of one billion times. I'm going to let that number sink in for a moment: one billion. 1,000,000,000. A thousand million. Last October, the United Nations estimated that the planet's seven billionth living human [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/united-nations-reports-7-billion-humans-but-others-dont-count-on-it.html] had been born, to put things in perspective.

Of course, while it's fun and slightly mindblowing to say things like "1/7th of the world's population has downloaded Angry Birds," we all know it's not true. Not only does this include multiple games - Angry Birds classic, Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Space - this number includes downloads across the bazillion different platforms on which the game is available. I've personally accounted for at least four of those downloads myself.

That said, this isn't to diminish the staggering number, either. Even if every Angry Birds player has downloaded a game in the series four times like I have, that's still 250 million people owning one version of the game - making Angry Birds the fourth most-populous nation in the world, right ahead of Indonesia and Brazil. What's also striking is how quickly it reached this milestone, having hit half a billion downloads [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113996-Angry-Birds-Downloaded-Half-a-Billion-Times] back in November.

It's the end of the 1-billion-downloads video that piques one's interest, however - a quick split-second shot of a young boy turning and winking at the camera. In its announcement, Rovio promises that "more amazing things" are coming soon, so perhaps this is a teaser. What exactly it's teasing I haven't the faintest, but one wonders if Rovio can make lightning strike twice with mobile gaming success. Or maybe one billion times.

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Terminate421

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Jul 21, 2010
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The flocks are coming in in large amounts this year when do you think they'll nest?

This is great, I love Angry birds and cannot wait for whatever Rovio does, even of its the same shtick.
 

Fappy

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Jan 4, 2010
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This IP needs to die so my little brother can stop yammering on about it all the time D:
 

Lunar Templar

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Sep 20, 2009
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and that means what?

its a free game, so ... till i hear numbers in relation to cash flow, i shall remain unimpressed
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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Meh.
A cheap (free, even), mediocre game looks great compared to the raw sewage that it competes with.
Sold on an inexplicably popular platform.

I'm not surprised, nor do I care much except that I know I'm going to have to put up with more of Rovio's fucking hype for the next year now.
 

bobmus

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May 25, 2010
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^ Wait, since when was Angry Birds free?
It's always been paid, as far as I'm aware?

EDIT: And no, the demo version doesn't count. That's like saying Halo: Reach is free because I played a demo of that...
 

Jaebird

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Since I need to "elaborate more in the future to stimulate discussion", since when does downloading something warrant an achievement? Getting a billion downloads is no different than getting a billion "Likes" on Facebook, if you ask me.
 

Scarim Coral

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TheBobmus said:
^ Wait, since when was Angry Birds free?
It's always been paid, as far as I'm aware?

EDIT: And no, the demo version doesn't count. That's like saying Halo: Reach is free because I played a demo of that...
Err it had always been free as in you can download the free version or paid the full version since the free version doesn't have every single levels included. I had downloaded both the first and space version without paying for it at all.
 

shintakie10

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Jaebird said:
Since I need to "elaborate more in the future to stimulate discussion", since when does downloading something warrant an achievement? Getting a billion downloads is no different than getting a billion "Likes" on Facebook, if you ask me.
Its a big ass number. I'd be impressed if someone were to get a billion likes on facebook too. No matter how you slice it, a billion downloads on somethin that many people actually pay for is a massive achievement.
 

bobmus

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May 25, 2010
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Scarim Coral said:
TheBobmus said:
^ Wait, since when was Angry Birds free?
It's always been paid, as far as I'm aware?

EDIT: And no, the demo version doesn't count. That's like saying Halo: Reach is free because I played a demo of that...
Err it had always been free as in you can download the free version or paid the full version since the free version doesn't have every single levels included. I had downloaded both the first and space version without paying for it at all.
In other words, we're calling the demo version of mobile games 'free games' are we now? Good to know.
 

Jaebird

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shintakie10 said:
Jaebird said:
Since I need to "elaborate more in the future to stimulate discussion", since when does downloading something warrant an achievement? Getting a billion downloads is no different than getting a billion "Likes" on Facebook, if you ask me.
Its a big ass number. I'd be impressed if someone were to get a billion likes on facebook too. No matter how you slice it, a billion downloads on somethin that many people actually pay for is a massive achievement.
But how do we even know people paid for it? I would be more inclined to not be a cynic about the whole thing if people paid for it without playing it for free first. A real achievement would be the game's success based on the power of word of mouth.
 

Scarim Coral

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TheBobmus said:
Scarim Coral said:
TheBobmus said:
^ Wait, since when was Angry Birds free?
It's always been paid, as far as I'm aware?

EDIT: And no, the demo version doesn't count. That's like saying Halo: Reach is free because I played a demo of that...
Err it had always been free as in you can download the free version or paid the full version since the free version doesn't have every single levels included. I had downloaded both the first and space version without paying for it at all.
In other words, we're calling the demo version of mobile games 'free games' are we now? Good to know.
I believe the word you're lookind for is "Premuim"

Angry Bird Space
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsspace.ads&feature=more_from_developer#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwMiwiY29tLnJvdmlvLmFuZ3J5YmlyZHNzcGFjZS5hZHMiXQ..

Angry Bird Premuim (paid to install)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirdsspace.premium&feature=search_result

Also in this Angry Bird page it said free with the word demo not mention at all.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.angrybirds&feature=more_from_developer
 

bobmus

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May 25, 2010
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Scarim Coral said:
TheBobmus said:
Scarim Coral said:
TheBobmus said:
^ Wait, since when was Angry Birds free?
It's always been paid, as far as I'm aware?

EDIT: And no, the demo version doesn't count. That's like saying Halo: Reach is free because I played a demo of that...
Err it had always been free as in you can download the free version or paid the full version since the free version doesn't have every single levels included. I had downloaded both the first and space version without paying for it at all.
In other words, we're calling the demo version of mobile games 'free games' are we now? Good to know.
I believe the word you're looking for is "Premium".
Apologies, I am not familiar with the Google version of the game. iOS listed one as 'Free', and one as the actual game.
 

Plinglebob

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Nov 11, 2008
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As someone who just got an Android phone and tried Angry Birds, I'm really not surprised. All I can really say is well done to them.
 

shintakie10

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Jaebird said:
shintakie10 said:
Jaebird said:
Since I need to "elaborate more in the future to stimulate discussion", since when does downloading something warrant an achievement? Getting a billion downloads is no different than getting a billion "Likes" on Facebook, if you ask me.
Its a big ass number. I'd be impressed if someone were to get a billion likes on facebook too. No matter how you slice it, a billion downloads on somethin that many people actually pay for is a massive achievement.
But how do we even know people paid for it? I would be more inclined to not be a cynic about the whole thing if people paid for it without playing it for free first. A real achievement would be the game's success based on the power of word of mouth.
If even a quarter of the downloads are paid for, thats still 250 million buys. Hell, if only 10% of the billion downloads were paid for that is still 100 million buys and even the 25% number is pushin the low end. No matter how you slice it, that is a ton of people.

Besides. How is it not an achievement that they got people to play their game for free and then turned those same people into payin customers? You get more levels and no ads with the paid version, but the free version already has a ton of levels on it and the ads are very unobtrusive. For people to still want to buy your game after that? That is a great accomplishment.