What does Rovio, maker of Angry Birds, plan to do next? Interview with Mighty Eagle

October 5, 2010 by MobileWebGo

Palm spent 30 minutes interviewing Peter Vesterbacka, the head of North America for Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds.

Below is a short summary of some of the topics they discussed. What is really intriguing is Peter's discussion (at minute 27:00 or so in the video) about how they see the iPad as ushering in the next generation of board games, and that Rovio would really study the tablet ecosystem to think about how to make the best social game.

Summary of the interview:

Palm interviews Peter Vesterbacka from Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds.

The firm was started in 2003. It had made 52 titles, as work for hire. Then Michael the CEO came in, and Rovio tried to develop their own game.

Rather than making 100 not-so-good games, they focused on making one really really good game. Pixar only makes good movies.
It used to be each platform had its own franchise. Nintendo had Mario. But now a franchise can be on all the platforms.

Grandparents are playing. It's pretty evenly split between the genders. It's a game for all ages. One person sad I had surgery, I had to stay in the hospital but thanks to Angry Birds it wasn't that bad.
Last time we released an upgrade, 77% of people upgraded right away. In the industry, it's not uncommon to have 25% upgrade.
They release a new version every 3 or 4 weeks, to keep the title relevant, live.
They are working on another title. It may or may not be angry birds.

The other side, the pigs may have something to say.

Pixar, sure they released toy story 2 and 3, but they are not too big on sequels. It's a bit lazy.

When Rovio does in-app purchasing, it's going to be amazing. Sure they can have users buy more levels, but that's so predictable. "We want to delight our fans." "We can do so much better than that." "We are asking our designers to come up with something better than that."

The port to Palm's WebOS was really trivial.

Yes, they have a home-grown game engine.

There's very little language. When you start there is the word "play" They've been number one in more than 60 countries [because of the lack of words]. It's very universal.
They paid really really fanatical attention to detail.
"We have fan sites popping up." "This week it's angrybirdnests.com."
The sales are still accelerating.
No, they don't make games for others any more. They say no all the time.

They are looking at the iPad, with its bigger screen. You can create some very interesting social games, the next generation of board games. They would want to make a truly social game, and do what they did with Angry Birds, really make the best game for that ecosystem. There's more to social than Facebook.

You have to be a gamer to make games. "Everyone in our company loves games."

Yes, they have a lot of testers in house. "We test and test and test."