If you are a smartphone user, chances are you have seen or played the hit game Angry Birds at least once.  The game became a phenomenon due to its fun gameplay featuring ‘angry’ birds with powers and pigs which try to steal the eggs of the birds.  However, the creators of the game, Rovio Entertainment, almost went bankrupt before coming up with the idea of Angry Birds.  While Rovio Entertainment may look like an overnight success story, in reality, it really was not.

Beginnings

Rovio Entertainment was founded by three Finnish students, Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen and Kim Dikert, belonging to the Helsinki University of Technology, after they won a mobile game development competition sponsored by Nokia and Hewlett-Packard in 2003.  Rovio was initially named Relude. Later, the name was changed to Rovio in 2005 before finally becoming Rovio Entertainment in 2011.

Rovio Entertainment was focussed on making games which targeted niche audiences and concepts like science fiction and horror.  They released 51 games to not a lot of success and realised they would go bankrupt if they continued on the same path.

Development of Angry Birds

When the first iPhone was announced in 2007, the entire smartphone industry was disrupted, leading to the development of new ecosystems.  Mikael Hed, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rovio Entertainment, saw an opportunity to create a game which echoed with the millennial mindset and attention spans.  He wanted to come up with a game which was easy to load, simple to play without any tutorial and could be played at any time.

While the team of Rovio Entertainment was experimenting with different concepts, one designer pitched a concept art showing a group of birds which were cross for no reason and the design stuck.  The game was developed around these ‘angry birds’ by creating a storyline and antagonists. For the antagonists, the developers settled on pigs because of the swine flu epidemic which was in the news at the time.  Angry Birds was the fifty second game to be developed by Rovio Entertainment and was developed at a cost exceeding 100,000 euros.

Capturing the market

The developers realised they could not compete on the Apple App Store in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, which hold the largest market share with other games, as the response to Angry Birds was lukewarm.  Therefore, the developers released the game in smaller markets like Finland, Sweden and Denmark before capturing Greece and the Czech Republic.  The larger markets began to take note and the App Store in the United Kingdom finally put it on its featured games list, thereby catapulting the game into limelight and making it the number 1 game on the U.K. and the U.S.A. App Stores.  Angry Birds reached its one billionth download in 2012 and two billionth download in 2014.

Rovio Entertainment showed what it means not to give up and stick to an idea if it is endearing.  The success of Angry Birds is a testimony to the perseverance of the studio behind it.  Angry Birds successfully spawned a franchise, with multiple games on offer, merchandise and Hollywood movies to its name.

Read about the story of Electronic Arts here : The Story of Video Gaming Company Electronic Arts (EA)