Why Did Angry Birds Go Bankrupt?
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- Опубліковано 4 лют 2025
- Why Did Angry Birds Go bankrupt…
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Angry Birds is now completely and utterly irrelevant. If you could travel back in time and tell this fact to somebody in the early 2010s, they simply wouldn’t have believed you. That’s because a decade ago, Angry Birds was more than just the #1 mobile-game series of all time. Angry Birds was a true media empire with games, toys, movies and more. But Now? The name “Angry Birds” is nothing but a distant memory. The brand has rapidly faded into irrelevance, and is now a forgotten relic of the Internet’s past.
At this point, the only hope for the company is in relying on the nostalgia factor of the joy we all felt a decade ago playing such a unique title.
The end is here...
I hope you enjoy the video, comment below “Nostalgic” or “Cash-Grab” to let me know what you think👇
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Could you talk about my oblivion and skyrim religion? It literally was like studying a lost mythology playing skyrim and figuring out all its hidden little secrets
Thats nice and all but not cool for dissing angry birds go that title was baller compared to the dogshit like transformers
@@wackyotter1235 That's okay, none of the games were original to begin with. It's based off an old flash game. Several in fact. I will say AB plays better though.
it's not true that angry birds was their first hit - check out Nokia Bounce that was distributed like Tetris with the original GameBoy
Also they made contracted games like NFS: Carbon and X Factor so that's far from being a failure
What is even funnier now, They re-released the classic Angry birds and it actually performed so well that they had to remove it because it was affecting the sales of their newer games. They dont seem to understand that Older games are way enjoyable than their new 3d games
Now the classic Angry Birds is l back in the App Store but rebranded as Red’s First Flight.
Let that sink in
@@astupidmidge Funniest thing is that this reboot was #2 on the app store and they decided to rename it
And Angry Birds 2 is a total scam!
I want them to put Reloaded on console and keep updating it. That would honestly be better than the original games.
I miss the classic Angry Birds.
Bad piggies was severely underrated and I'm surprised it wasn't as popular.
When a company releases games every few years it gives the game alot of time to get hyped up and for people to want to play it, when a company releases a game every 2 months, advertising it becomes practically useless.
Man I remember when bad piggies and all the originals came out I used to be able to play all the original rovio titles day and night bad piggies was my favorite still got it downloaded but man I mis the glory days of angry birds star wars and angry bird angry birds space the originals man can't beat them
Yeah, I'd go as far as saying that people not appreciating bad piggies was the very reason they ditched making new and original concepts at all.
Bad piggies was fire, the soundtrack, building, and levels were top tier.
Yep, I don't even remember what you used to do in it, just remembering it as good. Too much franchise milking overshadowed any fun and talent these guys could have brought out
Bad piggies is completely unique and very fun to play though. They nailed it with that title
I loved Angry Birds Go to be honest
yeah i didnt like angry birds game but i played a lot of bad piggies
@@andersensplob9082 Yeah angry birds Go was very fun
Yea. I also rlly liked angry birds transformers, angry birds go and also angry birds epic i grew up with those games.
Yeah I don't think it was wrong of them to do many many angry birds themed titles with different gameplay. Even when rip offs. They just should also develop new titles and keep development budgets for each title low, so that huge success is not a business necessity.
During the years when the brand started losing its power (2013-2015), it was reported in Finnish media and also on Finnish discussion forums etc. by Rovio (ex-)employees that the main issue with Rovio was that the company grew extremely fast and they suddenly ended up with extremely top/mid-heavy structure. Meaning that most people in the company were mid-managers who didn't create any value but instead started a lot of internal conflicts and blocked new projects etc. Because of this power struggle BS some teams within Rovio couldn't get resources internally and so they had to hire external 3rd party consultants to help with the stuff they were building. Lots of time, money and effort got wasted and here we are today...
Thanks for the insight! There’s always more than I can cover in one short video!
_The Gervais Principle_
Angry Birds was still popular during that time. It was around 2020 when it got forgotten.
Losing not loosing
@@davidkruse4030 Thanks, fixed the typo.
The story of Rovio is basically the episode of the Simpsons where Marge, in an attempt to keep impressing the rich women she's made friends with at a country club, keeps modifying a Chanel suit (she found by chance in a thrift store) until it falls to rags.
what episode is that
I've never watched the Simpson's but that's a good analogy
i remember this episode that has to be 10+ years old
@@IMHUSTLNGAMIN Try 27 years old
@@rsporsche please don't hurt me like this
First couple of games were so clean and well made. Pay like 1 dollar ish and you had the whole game and no ads, no bloat, just pure amazing gameplay. How they ruined this experience is a shame.
Because micro transactions did not exist that early.
@@Jessecwebb false they did, they just weren’t as pervasive and insidious as today. The first micro transactions go back as far as elder scrolls IV with horse armor
@@RageUnchained but the thing was im the early years of gaming if a game was broken...there was no dlc or patches you literally needed to wait and hope the company made V.2's copy fixing everything but it got the job done
@@THEPHARAOH2yea "early" even angry birds is 19 years old now. So yea during that time we already had microtransactions
@@Jessecwebbthey fucking did
The fact that all of this could've been avoided if they had just updated the original game more, and stopped around star wars 2, and just updated all the classics, is just so sad. I loved angry birds so much and it really blows to see the insanely terrible downfall of the legendary name. RIP.
Bottom line: Micro-transactions aren't cool. Especially if there's no decent story.
The thing is that they couldn't update the games tho, They were made on older engines which meant it was more difficult to constantly update
@@GamerboyZun i mean they didn't have to constantly update, they could've just updated the firmware to newer devices with just those games so they'd have less to worry about instead of overbearing themselves by making so many garbo games.
@@GamerboyZun they could’ve rereleased them for newer mobile devices
Hey they got bought for 750Mill so we might see a rebirth.
I don't find Amazing Alex and Bad Piggies "boring", they are amazing puzzle games that clearly have a lot effort going into them. Too bad the shadow of Angry Bird was too large to escape from and its main audience found them way too difficult compared to the mainline games
I mean Bad Piggies is popular by itself
They should have come out with Angry Cats 🐈! 😶
I spent far too many hours in the field of dreams
Bad piggies was good in the early days, before they started Sextupling down on microtransactions.
Yes, Bad Piggies was an example of constructive game, that allowed experimentation and fun. not as aggresive and destructive as their main AB line...
I had no idea that this company went bankrupt, amazing to think that this is even possible
The company is not bankrupt and was profitable in 2022.
Same here dude
Its still much bigger than most of the games on play store
And those are doing quite well
So why not rovio?
@@kultainenananas So dude lie in the title?
@@tkdevlop Yep.
The company just got acquired by Sega for 1b. Yeah, not that much but definitely not bankrupt
Personally, Bad Piggies was actually the most innovative of the lot. Really pushed your imagination.
Bad Piggies was a good spin off.
i like angry birds transformers
I loved Bad Piggies so much
I like it even more than Angry bird.
Fr
I'm a developer and I remember seeing a gamedev conference early into my career where Rovio spoke, the guys gave a talk like they had solved the equation of how to be successful and I remember shaking my head the whole way through. They seemed oblivious to the reality of their luck and were speaking with such authority on how they had cracked the code and how we all needed to follow specific principles when designing games, I am pretty sure this talk is on youtube. Anyway, this was right at the height of Angry Birds, when you couldn't walk into a GAME store without your eyes being assaulted by the plushies, so they were obviously smashing it out of the park but the hubris was pretty outrageous. Saw this video in my feed and couldn't help but chuckle, love to see it.
Lmfao, that's amazing. I love stories like this.
Incredible story mate, thank you for sharing it!
@unknown 2k22 and fly planes into buildings, no thanks.
typical of someone with new wealth thinking he finally got what he deserved, instead of realizing he got lucky with the algorithm. Look at every "influencer". Those we stay humble build a brand and the rest are insufferable and doomed to go back to oblivion.
@unknown 2k22 🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓
The success of Angry Birds comes from the fact that it was really the first superstar among modern mobile games. The game depth itself just wasn't enough to cover multiple games.
Acts 2 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I loved Angry Birds Star Wars and when I joined the Navy I was planning on downloading all of them to play offline while underway but I was heavily disappointed because I couldn’t find them anywhere on the AppStore. Now it makes sense
Oh dude, thanks for the nostalgia hit. I love that game to death
Am I the only person who loved angry birds transformers? The characters were all so creative and cool!
@@QUBIQUBED I loved that game too, the intro was nostalgia perfection with the old VHS feel. The IAP made the game unplayable though. It's too bad, they might have been better off if they just made their games premium titles rather than that pay-to-win nonsense.
They started to freeze when you play them offline coz they were trying to show you ads 😕. That's when they lost me after several years of playing
@@sixamcomics it used to be good in the first 9 months and it went downhill ever since they keep releasing new characters that are almost impossible to get without spending money
I'm shocked that they had almost 1000 staff at one point. Their growth was unsustainable.
yeah like why was the staff so big.. they had to know they was a one hit wonder... even i knew it back then
Maybe because of the movie.
They were a one hit wonder.
Unfortunately that’s just how the economy seems to operate. You’re either exploding and becoming something that’s too big to fail or you’re going under.
@@mushyroom9569 not at all true, especially with game companies
Angry Birds was definitely a lucky break for Rovio. There were most definitely way better games than this at that time. But it was just at the right place at the right time. And in a way this game boosted people's attraction towards digital games in general and thus helped em find more games and slowly burnt out in the process.
Apple needed a killer app. Use of multitouch touchscreens really shone with this game. Physics games like these were the big thing at the time, dozens of similar flash games.
It's always a triangle of feasability, cost and public will. People wanted to like the new iPhone, physics reached a technological peak, as well as touchscreens, and it was affordable.
'Amazing Alex' and 'Bad piggies' were both amazing and unique puzzle games. Pity that they were not enough to help the company survive
Err... The company is operating today. They have downsized after their heyday, sure.
Angry birds go was an amazing game as well
Those were my favorite games when i was young, they where pretty good
i had both. amazing alex was mediocre, bad piggies was great
Just want to say that original angry brid was the most fun to play. I fondly remembered it till now.
I also remember losing interest and patience over seeing weird and more weird levels and soon a multitude of micro-transactions.
A simple, clean and creative game just required a little bit of handling but keeping the original feel. I don't know why they messed up the original one.
Seeing a giant company with an iconic franchise fall to the ground may hurt, but at least it shows how no company is too big to fail if they overly-rely on their icons to make their profits for them.
Disney, we're looking at you.
I hope not
I wish that was the case, but Rovio was still up and coming as Disney just turned 100, I doubt disney will go out of business, but I do hope they stop cranking out bad films.
Unless by some miracle Disneyland went bankrupt I doubt we would see Disney going on freefall anytime soon
nobody to big to fall, history shown it, but yet people keep on thinking their invincible, in world, shit crumbles and falls and turns to dust is natural order of things!
Disney did actually struggle a little in the early 80s.
It’s really sad to me that Rovio and Angry birds went on such a decline. This game WAS my childhood, and it saddens me to see it fall apart so badly
Rovio was bought,maybe it will make the change
Same here I used to play angry birds when I was young. Not just that but it's also removed on all android devices.
@@ECRALSE40LPS If you want to bother with it seasons is still available for download
if you search it up
Same here. I used to play most of (if not all) angry birds games. There goes my childhood.
Acts 2 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
What I learned from this video; Basically, treat all success like the video game "Raft". You never focus on a single plank of wood or debris; every success becomes part of the foundation of your business, and it's only when you have a strong foundation that you can start building upwards.
Rovio's problem is that they tried building an Empire on the one plank of wood they managed to get their hands on.
The millions or even billions of dollars they made from Angry Birds should have been used to keep the company afloat and pay for R&D for new games, which would have paid for more games, more employees, more buildings, etc.
What a great summary! Thanks for taking the time to write this! Cheers mate!
First you build the floor, and when the floor is big and great enough, you can build stairs and a first, second, etc, floor.
@@theTranscendentOnes
I'm not even doing any consulting. The entire point of my comment was what I learned, personally, from watching this video.
As you say, I'm just some random guy on the internet. None of what I've said should matter to you.
So what are you so mad about?
@@theTranscendentOnes
I think you should be more annoyed at how you live your life.
You say I'm just a random person on the internet, but neglect to apply that same logic to yourself.
You use words like "unsubstantiated" but only in meaningless places like a youtube comments section instead of actually getting a real job.
You actually think youtube comments are THAT deep.
You're not important or special. You're just a loser who thinks far too highly of themselves and you get your kicks from berating internet strangers for their comments while lacking the self awareness to realize you're just as worthless and unimportant.
You should do better.
@@toasega
"You're not important or special. You're just a loser who thinks far too highly of themselves and you get your kicks from berating internet strangers for their comments while lacking the self awareness to realize you're just as worthless and unimportant. "
I don't get kicks from berating strangers, I'm a supporter of truth and reason and if you see my attempt at exposing your flawed thinking of "loser" then you're actually a loser who can't take an honest/valid criticism. Me and you might be worthless but the truth is not.
You should do better.
angry birds played a part in when i was younger, its sad seeing the franchise go down this route.
Childhood down.
Ikr. It was the coolest thing when I was 13
I have some great memories playing the Christmas, New Year's Eve and Chinese new year's levels. That and the angry birds Rio levels were good memories for me. I'm also sad to see the franchise go this route. My sisters and I had a good time with the game on a kindle fire we had when we were younger.
same here.
at least its well deserved
ROVIO (bonfire) is such a suiting name for a company which kindled a fire by luck...and it burned long until it extinguished eventually. And when they had to recreate their success, they failed.
One of my greatest fears honestly, i am afraid that sometimes i am too lucky and others get the wrong idea of how successful i am. Remember hearing a friend say "Wait how are you so dumb and smart at the same time?" stuff like that really scares me.
you sound intelligent to me. Don't take everything people say so seriously. Listen to yourself too.
Imposter syndrome. You're not the only one. So long as you keep diversifying, i.e. always learning and growing as a person, you're not gonna be a one hit wonder like Rovio is
Geniuses and genius products making them classics often have specific things that are insanely good, and other things that are really bad. But people love the good, and then accept the bas as part of the charm. You have pros and cons like the rest of us, and because we humans tend to look for the positive, youll be alright.
Except the company has not been extinguished. The title is wildly misleading. Rovio has made a profit for at least the last 4 years straight and grown its revenue by 50% in the last 6 years. Angry Birds isn't as relevant as it used to be, but the company is dong fine.
that means you have to very flexible and realistic. you have to know when you will begin to decline and expect failure and don't rely on only one solution. better to have a small but flexible effort rather than huge but fragile one. that is what happens to rovio.
Angry Birds Epic, Angry Birds Go, and Angry Birds Rio were really fun, its a shame they took it down.
This ❤️ man my phone back then wasn't like the top but playing epic and go with my cousins were the best of times for us I wish it was still on
I think i still have that awesome angry birds go game on old ipad and also i have those starwars angry birds figures that you place on camera and get special birds
actually Rio was the only thing of the series I could claim to have any attachment whatsoever because of the Rio movie. Maybe it was because of I didn't have devices to play with, but I also wasn't too interested into playing the game and in concept of throwing living creatures or characters to destroy something. I thougth when I heard about the angry bird movie they were still relevant and honestly I had no idea they were on the situation they are in.
Angry bird star wars
angry birds goal too 😭 they made too many istg
These are things people don't usually talk about. There are too many success stories and we forget failures are actually where we learn something.
That's a large part of what I'm trying to do with this channel! I want to highlight sides of stories that other people don't look into! Thanks for the encouragement mate!
what nonsense is this? there are failure stories about companies all over youtube and the internet. look at company man's channel
And for every success there's a hundred other failures you never hear about.
Downfall of success
Rovio's downfall was a cautionary tale of what happens when a company grows too fast and forgets its roots. It's a shame to see a franchise that brought so much joy to so many people end up bankrupt. Hopefully, future companies will learn from their mistakes and not let their egos get in the way of their success. RIP Angry Birds.
You sound like a 11 y.o. girl
Actually, it's a saga about one game that was a flash of a genius and subsequent failure to produce something alike. Unfortunately, this happens way too often. When you produce one brilliant thing and fail to create something like that later for the rest of your life.
Acts 2 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I don’t know how, but with only 100 subs you are dropping BANGERS my guy. Also bring back the old Angry Birds
Thanks for the continued support! It means a lot to me!
its 600 now!!!
This comment lol 🤦🏻♂️
@@rogerdahl0 Another day later and it broke 2k
@@SyncronedStuff just 14 hours after your comment it's 3.1k now
I am sure Rovio knew that the key to success was to produce more great, original games but this is easier said then done.
IMO the start of the rot in any sort of company like this is the expectation of success, which leads to a loss of the hunger and drive that created the initial success.
Than
@@gayjoebiden , So embarrassing. I usually look down on people who make simple grammatical mistakes and now I find myself doing them to.
@@pyotrberia9741 Too
@@pyotrberia9741 legendary response ily
He starts actually talking about their downfall almost exactly halfway through, and spends 6 minutes telling us about it's popularity and also telling us how we already KNOW it popular. For 6 minutes of a 13 minute vid. Shouldve been like 7 minutes or so, way too much preamble about knowing about knowing.
7:30 This is unwarranted Angry Birds Go slander and I won't stand for it.
Haha no slander here, just trying to point out similarities! Thanks for watching mate!
Something I've noticed is that Angry Birds had a big enough impact that even today you can go anywhere and someone will know what Angry Birds is. There are also times when out of the blue someone references it or it comes up in a conversation. It might be dying/dead but people won't forget about it for a long time after it finally does disappear.
That's the thing which gives it a fair chance to be revived.
A lot of cult classics went into hibernation to be rediscovered later and become even more cult.
Unless of course, someone tries to milk it just for nostalgia …
@@Cau_No Pokemon Gen 1, amirite
@@johnapple6646 More Star Trek, Doctor Who, … including lately the milking part …
Zoomer equivalent of pogs
People remember pop culture icons long after they become defunct. I'm not at all surprised they went bankrupt, a re-skin of a free flash game doesn't translate well to a video game franchise.
Rovio went from top of the chart to Lackluster in 1 decade
2009 : 125 Million Downloads / 55% Marketing
2010-2012 : 540 Million Downloads / 45% Marketing
2013-2015 : 16 Million Downloads / 15% Marketing
2016-2017 : 25 Million Downloads / 35% Marketing
2018-2019 : 20 Million Downloads / 5% Marketing
2020-2022 : 3 Million Downloads / 1% Marketing
2023 (now) : 2 Million Downloads / 1% Marketing
what does "X% marketing" means?
@@yourmother9359 how Many People In a Percent Buy Stuff
@@HTV315 damn, 2010-12...they were killing it. I did not realize that you were even able to buy stuff, in the game, back on the first version? More you know.
@@HTV315 Also, thank you. :)
Acts 2 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I know people who worked on the first Angry Birds game. I was told that the company was almost bankrupt while the game was being developed. The leadership was occupied by crisis meetings while the devs were working on the game. Rovio had a bonus model that was supposed to reward employees certain percentage of profits but once Angry Birds became a huge hit, they announced that there would be a bonus ceiling and the Angry Birds dev's got pitiful bonuses while the leadership that had little to do with its developement was showered with money.
Disgusting corporates. They ruin everything for everyone.
Damn that's dirty!
Greed bit like these hedge funds & shorters
WTF! what a scam.
Disgusting lol, thats awful. No wonder this franchise failed
Old flash games were the basis of Angry Bird’s gameplay. Rovio just put a bright colorful filter on an established successful game, ported it to mobile, and racked in the rewards. Rovio never understood how to make games
They made their money tho
Old flash games were the basis for most of that era of mobile games
There was a free open source physics engine called Box-2D that these flash games as well as Angry Birds used. Rovio just slapped some birdball graphics on Box-2D, made a few menus, and called it a day. Shockingly the game became massively popular.
The original programmer of Box-2D, Erin Catto, never received proper credit. He is the true genius! Remember his name!
@@Controllerhead Well said, I was training to be a games developer at the time and I remember being told this that the most impressive thing was the physics engine that there didn't make. However the graphics and game design was cool.
I guess you could say they never understood how to make games, but they did understand (well, sort of...) how to make a mobile software product that would sell. I mean, all those top mobile games at the time had those cartoony graphics and oversaturated colors, and we could probably all agree that until a certain point, it does appeal to the brain (but then it just gets cloying really fast)
I remember playing tons of flash games that were near identical to the gameplay of Angry Birds before Angry Birds. They just lucky that they had a cute mascot and it was on mobile.
yes on armorgames i used to play basically angry birds but with a trebuchet taking down castles😂
@@effeeeCrush the Castle! It was basically Angry Birds, but better in some ways - Interesting ammunition, different sorts of puzzles... But, Angry Birds was better in what counted, which was cute smooth visuals that didn't look like a flash game and simplified play that let people get in and figure it out pretty much instantly - Not to mention how it helped show off how great smartphones are, and therefore got help from Apple.
bowmaster prelude
the high quality videos you are bumping out is insane. You are going to reach great success if you keep this up
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the kind words!
6.76K subs, apparently was only at like 100 when the video came out
so true, when i watched it i thought i was on like an 1M+ subscriber channel xD
I stopped playing Angry Birds when they’ve started adding power ups and levels where stars are needed to be unlocked. This really was how I saw the downfall of the franchise.
I missed when I could just unlock a level by just completing a level in the original Angry Birds. I missed when you could find several levels in Angry Birds Seasons if you ever gotten bored of the original levels. Sometimes they’ve added a few new birds in seasons too.
Angry Birds,
Angry Birds Seasons,
Angry Birds Rio,
Angry Birds Space,
Bad Piggies,
And Angry Birds Star Wars are all from good memories of mine.
The advent of micro transactions as how they are today. It was inevitable with Apple's mature in app purchase system, it just that at a point all studios milked it too much
@@davidtrak2679 Damn you Mighty Eagle!
Actually many angry birds titles were amazing and so well-beloved, especially Epic, star wars and bad piggies. They had special characters and abilities, awesome storylines, and extremely fun and tactical play. They could have gotten back by making updates to these successful games, but they're too busy making "new and unique" games(actually match 3 stupidities) so they never care about 'em anymore
They were all copy paste games of the previous.
@@REXae86 bad piggies? no way
I didnt know Epic was copied
@@REXae86 The games mentioned were unique, Epic was turn-based-rpg, and Bad Pigggies was a vehicle building game.
End even some of the "formula" games had enough of their unique gimmicks to be pretty fun of their own.
Considering candy crush is still growing and one of the monetary most successful games ever, you're absolutely right 😂
They could just milk their original games forever.
Lots of examples like this.
Fun fact: On my flight from Finland to Thailand in October 2022 with Finnair, they had Angry Birds as a part of the in-flight entertainment program. Playable on the screens on the seat infront of you.
Air New Zealand still has it on their in-flight entertainment, I flew with them a few weeks ago. Honestly reminded me about the game, which I'd almost totally forgotten about, and here I am down the rabbit hole watching this video lol
I honestly find Rovio’s downfall amusing, because not only does it show they milked the franchise to where it’s no longer good, but now Sega owns Angry Birds, which we can only hope they’ll handle the franchise better than Rovio did.
What’s sad is that Rovio made Angry Birds, but instead of being satisfied, in typical business fashion, they keep using the IP to make other unnecessary spin-off titles. The cartoon series known as Angry Birds Toons was a good idea, but the spinoffs games were just stupid. Like Angry Birds Epic, Angry Birds Pop, Angry Birds Star Wars, etc.
Overall, Angry Birds was something that started as a success, but got to the point where it’s no longer the simple app that we used to play as kids. I do hope this franchise just stops, and we can appreciate it for what it was, rather than what it is now.
This brings back a sad but good memory, there was a family fight/ not really but no one talked, because of my uncle’s daughter. He came over and invited us to the wedding (his daughter’s she never invited us) he even started crying. After it was done we were all happy, We had this angry birds pillow we still do and my uncle’s words were, “Don’t worry you can throw that pillow away, no one angry!” R.I.P Uncle today’s his 57 birthday 20th Feb 2022
From Angry Birds to Angry Customers. So many companies do that. Even Disney is doing it in a big way.
Perhaps the real Angry Birds were us.
@@xxx_vinnie_paul_xxx1861 I’m offended.
At least Disney isn’t fully dead compared to Rovio.
And shooting themselves in their foot is not the Hobby of Official staff at Disney.
I miss all of the old angry birds games. It’s a shame they took them down.
Bad piggies was excellent. Especially the sandbox mode. I loved that thing
Sitting on previous success and not building anything new.
That's dangerous!
It's sad Rovio wasn't able to replicate their success and make more cool games.
I wonder what they could have done to keep their company successful? 🤔
I feel like this is the natural outcome of any software company. It begins with a group of nerds trying to make something cool, their creation explodes in popularity. This explosion results in a newfound goal to just make massive profits at all costs, the original vision of simply making something cool is thrown out the window and forgotten.
_The Gervais Principle_
Store manipulated popularity by free advertisement. Once removed it was forgotten. Mobile games weren't software stored in an open operative system that abandoned software was uninstalled and forgotten. As strange it sound they should had went to clothes brand and fire 99% of all employees since brands are outsourced.
Retail stores is free advertisement and the money they earned on angry birds should had been used to secure the company's survival but they just individually decided to invest on themselves and they choose money over the company.
The company is running successfully, revenue around 280M and has been getting 12 to 32M in profits for the last few years. Their flagship brand is just fairly irrelevant today.
I truly don't understand why more companies don't lean in to the idea of zero micro-transactions. I really think the potential marketing boost of not doing that has to count in ways that can't be foreseen before a game comes out. A commitment to quality and an ad-free experience matters so much more than these greedy executives can understand. I think while the immediate growth and projections would probably be lower than if they included micro-transactions, a year+ of a game releasing quality-focused updates and demonstrating trust and communication WILL draw in players.
If this company had gone this route instead of the one they did, they would have been able to sustain a moderate level of success indefinitely. Imagine if instead of 40 new Angry Birds games, they released one really good one that would indefinitely include huge free updates (such as Star Wars levels, etc.) and have a base cost of $5. Word would spread that the company wasn't going the predictable route of pumping out shovelware and heavy mtx. Maybe they never have the theme park but the merchandise would still be relevant, the first movie could still be made, etc. And then after 3-4 years they could do the same thing with Angry Birds 3 for $6 that would have much better graphics and 3 more years of free updates.
I'm just some guy on the internet who doesn't know business but I genuinely believe that my idea would have led to the company being in at least a somewhat better spot right now
Your strategy is way more risky for companies in general and actually revolve around doing good games and those good games being financially sucessful.
Having a riskier strategy is generally not good to obtain funding, which is a problem in itself for the company.
Doing a good game is harder than just doing a technically good game, there are a lot of different factors, some not even related to the game directly but to things like trends.
Doing a good game is not even enough to be garanteed to be fiancially successful, there are probably ten of thousands of good games that lost money. Your game just might be lost in the millions of games that exist.
You're pretending that doing "a year+ of a game releasing quality-focused updates and demonstrating trust and communication WILL draw in players." but it's simply not true.
First, you need to be able to finance this game for a year after publishing without necessarily doing profit, which is even more riskier if your game fail, but also you're under the influence of the survivorship bias, because you don't actually know about all those games that just failed in the obscurity.
For example in PC gaming, there is Imperator:Rome which had some visibility, was developped for some years, plus 2 years after publishing, without micro-transaction (but DLCs), and just wasn't profitable in the end while having currently "Very positive" recent evaluations (but bad ones at release).
So, there is this strategy of doing A LOT of games, and hoping that one will do good for some time and enough money through micro-transaction to be profitable, and repeat.
They did 51 games before doing Angry bird, it is not an accident, it's how the mobile game market is.
But for going in your sense, with the hype around Angry birds, they would probably have done better with your strategy, but it was a very particular situation, I think they just thought "let's keep doing what we were doing since it worked".
My childhood was angry birds. Especially angry birds go. Begging my father to let me download a new stage back in the days where data cost per megabyte was equal to what is today per gigabyte, it was surely an event in my life every time I was allowed.
I hadn’t thought about this franchise in a while and it reminded me of how much fun the earlier games were and creative some of the tie-ins were (like the Star Wars games). So, before I got to the point in the video explaining what they did to the old games, I decided to go back into my App Library to put a few games (that I paid real dollars for) back on my phone to play during commutes. Of course, I saw that the games weren’t there anymore. Then I reached the point in this video explaining that the studio removed all the old games without notice and later apologized to fans explaining that they’d re-release them (but for a price).
Why in the world would I trust a company enough to buy their product if they’ve already established that they’re willing to take paid apps people paid for off of phones and out of App Libraries just so they can repackage and resell the games?
If you no longer want to support a game, that’s fair, stop support, but don’t remove the game. If you want to resell a game in a remastered version, that’s fine too. Remaster it and sell it, but don’t remove the originals.
Screw this company.
And they're also delisting the bad remake of the original game as well.
If you bought them on iOS they should still appear in your account's purchases tab
@unknown 2k22 🥓🥓🥓🥓🥓
@unknown2k229 LMAO, if I was going to worship a fictional character I'd at least do one that provides a service like santa claus or super-man
@unknown 2k22 that would be more convincing if your prophet wasn’t a child sex abuser.
I remember having Amazing Alex on my phone and really liking it when I was younger, some kid at a barbershop even helped me complete some levels. I had no idea it was even made by Rovio
4:48 this stock footage of code is hilarious. head>head> on line 9, unquoted string on line 18, missing comment markers on like 13, missing `
Based on the comments your channel is a rising star. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! The support has been overwhelming!
@@TheOfficialHorizonYT don't become like Rovio lol, that'd be ironic
I remember going to the movie theater in those years and saw everyone playing this game before the movie start. They were angry birds flying all over the theater.
Really enjoyed Angry Birds in the original form and even some of the first "in-universe" games; Rio, Space, etc. But the reeengineering of later versions with the microtransactions and endless, intrusive advertising killed the game. Interesting to hear they're re-releasing.
I'm only five minutes in, but this channel has production values worth far more than just 6K subscribers. Great video and this channel is severely underrated.
Thank you so much! Your comment made me smile. I’m honestly blown away that 6 thousand people enjoy the documentaries I create!
@@TheOfficialHorizonYThehe now it’s 8k
as a finn who started primary school when angrybirds was just a few years away from launching it truely gave me golden memories of watching angrybirds youtube videos with my friends and playing the all the time. i still remember going to the local supermarket to buy a physical copy of ab seasons and playing it with my sister and also visiting the angrybirds theme park multiple times. even till this day i sometime boot up angrybirds epic to play it for the dungeons but have yet to beat them im stuck on dungeon. this summer i will be turning 18 this summer and cant thank rovio enough for giving me such unforgettable memories of these games❤
Actually, crush the castle used the original idea of slingshoting projectiles at castles/buildings and Rovio asked the makers of crush the castle if it was okay to use their mechanic/idea in their game before making the game. I'm not sure exactly when they asked off the top of my head, but they 100% did.
I miss the victory jingle D: "doot doo-da doot DOOT DOOT 🎺"
Crush the castle was better than angry birds I grew up with flash games and have never liked mobile games
@@Tako258 The mobile Sonny game was the worst and least compelling installment I have ever seen. Epic Battle Fantasy did pretty well with mobile ports, though
Crush the Castle and its sequel were games I spent my childhood with. Such a great soundtrack, levels, variety of weapons and even lore (in the case of CtC2)
@unknown 2k22 You should be saying "astaghfirullah" for interrupting this sacred moment of reminiscing with proselytization.
I remember enjoying my time with Angry Birds Space, it was good fun.
I remember the biggest decline was Angry Birds 2. It looked great, fluent animation, sound design was excellent and the levels were quite fun, but the problem were the heart system and the cards for me. You couldn't choose which birds you wanted in what order, so if you want to clear the wood with Chuck and then use Silver, tough, use Silver first.
I redownloaded it a couple years later to see if it was the same as it was and Jesus CHRIST it got WAY WORSE! So many things they added to get more money from you via microtransactions which lead to way more ads
heart system kills ALL joys in gaming. heart system is Capitalism on our hand. before our eyes. parents may support it because kids have 'break time'. but the real intention is Gems to refill the hearts!
Yeah i loved playing angry birds 2, My only problems is the heart system and how difficult some of the levels are without using the powerups.
Had the same experience trying to play angry birds years later. Installed the game and tried playing the first level and was nothing but bombarded with adds and microtransactions making the game practically unplayable. Immediately Uninstalled the game. Done with anything from this company.
@@scow01 But their heart is in the right place 🤣
the heart system were meant to overcome addiction from playing the game, as Rovio said
When you mentioned Amazing Alex it unburied a very distant memory that i have not thought about in years. Thank you
Haha glad I could bring it back for you mate!
I juat had the exact same experience. Wowie, did I forgot this game existed.
Angry birds epic and angry birds go were my favorite games. It was a shame when they were no longer on the app store.
I actually liked their newer games.
I remember I had downloaded angry birds go on my nook tablet and even after it was removed, it was still on my tablet and I was able to play it but not online…there was also a lot of glitches I found before it was removed that caused many issues for me when I attempted it after it was removed.
@@NiecyNYC I downloaded angry birds go and angry birds epic on a tablet that I later on lost access to and I couldn't download the games elsewhere since they were already taken down.
@@stemcareers8844 Just search for it, there apk files of angry birds go and It's not really hard to find yhem
They did some weird update that removed my progress in angry birds go and it made me really mad. It was a good game before that imo. I also liked angry birds epic, it had a unique feel at the time.
I think the biggest problem is just that they grew too fast. Yes, you need to strike while the iron is hot, but if you overextend you're going to have issues. In 10 years they had 30 games released, two movies, and countless merchandise. That's just too much, especially for a mobile game. Then you add in a bigger push for micro-transactions and the issues only get worse.
Plus they never expanded beyond the birds. It's tough coming up with a second act. Even pokemon and hello Kitty are past their heyday.
@Jon Freeman not true because they are still the biggest IPs in the world. People still love pokemon and hello kitty and new children love them too. People were literally stealing pokemon cards man. So much they have to lock them up and you need an assistant to get it for you.
@@jonfreeman9682 honestly one of the biggest differences between pokemon and angry birds is the fact that pokemon games are just as much driven by story and narrative as they are by the whole "gotta catch them all" mechanic, whereas angry birds was entirely and completely built around a single mechanic of lauching birds into structures, a mechanic that wasn't really even expanded upon in newer games.
They removed it and renamed it "Rovio Classics: AB" and they only did it to make it harder to find, then they removed it again and added it back and now it's called "Red's First Flight". The worst part is that if you bought it, you have to pay for it again
RCAB enjoyers explaining how a terrible Unity remake is the original (it's not)
Acts 2 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I think this is indicative of a larger issue with businesses. Everyone wants to live forever, and in non critical industries, this just can’t happen. Creative ideas expire, and while there may always be some grassroots support, the world as a whole doesn’t care about most things 5-10 years after their inception. But instead of using the earned money as a buffer while they create the next thing, too many companies try to keep IP on life support.
This is a good take, even if you see these so called "Triple A" game nowadays, they all feel like just the same and nothing new to offer for gamers to explore in a unique and interesting way. They just pumped everything their past titles can offer with no creativity and innovation.
Like Valve?
@@martynomskyrt7439 I think Valve is a unique case, they do love making games, and they make good games, but they're a marketplace provider more than a game developer. They know this, and focus on it.
@@corbinpearce7686 Yeah. I have huge respect for Valve both as a gaming company and a service provider company.
Very few companies can sustain an IP forever. It loses its appeal over time which is why Disney bought Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars to keep building its brand and Mickey mouse has kinda been retired.
I started watching this and was immediately enthralled so, because of the research, narration, editing, and the storytelling, that this must be some big channel (Like James Jani, MagnatesMedia, Moon etc.), then I see you have only 1.2K subs 😳😳😳 What the hell man???? 1000 subs? Man, keep up these quality videos and you are definately going to get one of those gold youtube plaques.
Great work guys, best video I've seen in a while. That was a f'ing cool story, thanks man and I'm looking forward to your next ones 👍👍
I really appreciate the kind words Johnny! I couldn't stop smiling as I read your comment. Thank you for the support!
He just got 200 more subs, me included. :D
I also thought I was watching MagnatesMedia or Moon or j Aubrey. Top notch stuff
Definitely one notable detail i'm surprised got COMPLETELY skipped over in the video...
The *entire* concept for Angry Birds originates from an Armor Games flash named Crush the Castle, and i believe they even admitted it too :V
@@TheOfficialHorizonYT I'm so glad your were smiing :) I love these video essay style docs, and you guys are nailing it. You've gone from 1.2K to 17.5K, and 1.2M views on this vid, in 3 weeks! Keep it up guys, wishing you all the best, and looking forward to your future, it looks bright 👍
I even saw an Angry Birds add with pigs coming over with buildings to attack you, but this was never in Angry Birds, and was in the ad only. I think this is how desperate the company was.
Ok I'm sorry but there is A LOT wrong with this video that I need to dissect
First of all, No, Rovio has not gone bankrupt and The Angry Birds franchise is most certainly Not dead as there are thousands of fans who are still in this "small" community who appreciate these games and aren't relying on "nostalgia" to enjoy them.
When talking about Angry Birds Merch you show The Mighty Mojo Plushies which actually were Not released in 2012 but were announced 6 MONTHS AGO which goes to show how little research you put into this video (Also Can you Please Credit The UA-camr Maximus Overdrive for using his Video Thumbnail at 5:42 ? )
While yes, Rovio was "milking" the Angry Birds brand, to say that fans were getting bored of the "lackluster ripoffs" is completely untrue as those games are still very much adored by fans and were especially enjoyed when they released as Go has had over 100M downloads on The Google Play Store with most ratings being Very Positive
Now I will admit some games being made now are definitely less fun such as AB Journey however games like that weren't released during "Rovio's downfall" as you were calling it and released years later
I will agree with you on The Angry Birds Movies bringing back their relevance (although it was still quite big when the 1st Movie released).
Now of course Delisting the old Angry Birds games was a bad decision (although they didn't just dissappear they were only delisted meaning you couldn't find them with a regular search, you could still play it if you had it on your device) so yes that was a poor decision, However Rovio clearly has shown that they care about fans as they have brought back the classic game as Rovio Classics Angry Birds (Although it is not on console so I'm unsure where you got that info from) and saying that Rovio is relying on Nostalgia factor from the fans is just complete misinformation.
So no, The Angry Birds franchise, While obviously not as large as it was Years ago, is Not anywhere near to "dying" , The community is still very large and consists of Fans who genuinely care about the games and want to see them succeed.
Please don't interpret this as a mean hate comment as I think this video has quite good editing I just want to see it used on a video that doesn't spread misinformation and make a franchise look bad.
GRAAHH GET THEY ASS
Genuinely, thank you for taking the time to write all of this out. It’s clear you really care about this franchise, and that your comment is not written from a place of hate. Thank you!
@@TheOfficialHorizonYT It's no problem, Thank you for taking my critism and I'm sorry if any parts of my comment seem rude, Again I think this video is really well edited and I'm sure you have the skill to become a big creator, I would just like to see a video with more effort put into the research is all
I always welcome feedback, that's the only way things improve! I'm still working on improving my research so I appreciate your feedback!
Plus now Angry Birds is on VR :)
I wish this video did also cover more of the user reviews and discussion than just articles as it paints a clear picture of how the fans felt about the franchise as it went forward.
Thanks for the feedback mate! I always love hearing ways to improve my documentaries!
@@TheOfficialHorizonYT That also humanizes the story. The sailor story down below is on point. That guy thought he was gonna’ have games to play while he was stuck on the ship for months doing nothing but 18 hours of work, or waiting to get to work, a day. But no, they took the games down. And their ‘apology’ added salt to the wound.
Angry birds used to be the main topic of discussion when I was in school especially when a new update or even game dropped at the time. This was between 2010 and 2012 so when angry birds was in its prime. I remember ever since they added the power ups and the microtransactions, the games really started to go downhill until as we know they were all eventually delisted. Rovio clearly let the success of angry birds go to their heads and tried to squeeze as much money out of people as possible. Now all their good classic games are gone and we are left with their newer games which either suck or are no where near as interesting. Considering they released an updated version of their original angry birds game and then delisted it a short time later when it didn't get the downloads they wanted, this just shows they don't care anymore.
I really find it sad that Rovio had other titles like Amazing Alex and Tiny Thief that were never given the chance to succeed. They could have gotten experience on how to make other types of games. It also reminds me a lot of EA controlled PopCap, basically only makes PvZ these days and nothing else.
Honestly, I never played angry birds. I always played crush the castle, so when angry birds came out, I just couldn't get why a reskinned game was getting so famous
Well I wouldn't say re skinned, sure it took heavy inspiration but there were other factors to its success
I remember Amazing Alex. I had it on an old tablet of mine which is now long gone but I would do anything to play that game just one more time.
Amazing work mate. If you keep the quality going, this is a 1 million sub channel in the next couple or so years. Keep it up!
Thank you mate! I really appreciate the kind words!
I'm shocked at the quality of this video from such a small channel. Instant sub.
Thank you very much! Your support means a lot to me!
@user-pv4jo4qt6y and your mother clearly didn’t either
Shouts out to the og catapult flash game that they ripped off.
Turns out a studio who's only success comes from reskinning someone elses work won't be that good at consistently making quality games.
Clickbate title. They are still making 250-300 millions a year. At some moment they reached about 500 mln and owner wanted to get a unicorn but struggled to achieve this.
The company mostly stuck at one level struggling to purse any genres beyond slingshot. All attempts like battle royal, match 3, pop had a very moderate success (probably most of the people even didn't heard about non-birds games).
Slingshot market has a limited capacity, that is not growing - nowadays most of the money are made in other genres. Marked evolved over the years but company failed to catch up it at pace required for growth.
Anyway it's far beyond"Go Bankrupt".
Rovip is the literal definition of puting all their eggs in one basket.
Or maybe having too much eggs.
Lol
legs and hands.. yup.. after the movie pocketed a larger amount than the basic/original/classic game.. they chance because of that trend "bird with hands and legs." It makes me very sad.. It's even worse when some classic games are deleted.. before mast deletion, they constantly add many ads, microtransactions, in-game transactions(coins), and ridiculous options to unlock the levels with coins before the mast deletion...
Their own history should have told them about the future: they made 51 games that flopped before finding ONE concept that worked. Given that, they should have expected to make a hit every 50ish games and kept making them. Instead they kept making the one game. They had no other idea. That's a very dangerous place to be and they should have kept that in mind at all times, that they had a very fragile success going on rather than figuring it was a given and they could do no wrong. 51 games said they could fail. They didn't listen.
heck every lottery in mobile games industry happen like that.
9:32 Except getting a special extension on the copyright two times to keep control of the mouse.
@@weteyesoceanmachine89 Narrator was saying that Disney didn't just coast off the mouse. Yet they had copyright law extend the copyright duration twice to keep their mouse from going into the public domain, because they apparently thought that money from the mouse was that important.
Bro this could've been an 8 minute video without stock footage and presets and absolutely unreasonable dramatic music. Doesn't work for me.
such an immersive video, I didnt realize this is not some 5 millions subscribers channel til I went down the comments
You have no idea how much that means to me! I really appreciate it!
@@TheOfficialHorizonYT For real. This channel is something else for such a small creator. Keep up this channel please, good things are coming your way.
5:44 where starts the video promised by the tittle
“Soon every kid was egging their parents for merchandise” come on dude let’s not exaggerate
Even though concept of making videos about dying pop-cultural and internet stars is not new I am always happy to see more. Specially when they are well executed like this. I subscribed and looking for more. Keep up the great job!
Thanks for the support mate! I appreciate you taking the time to check out my videos!
i never played it much, but was stuck in an airport recently and saw it on the app store. it was a bit of a nostalgia trip... at least until like ten levels in where there was no possible way to get past a boss without power-ups and purchasing more birds, so i uninstalled lol.
it had a good run, but when you constantly have to answer to investors and finance bros, you're forced down the money route.
I remember the one time I caved to peer pressure and decided to give the game a try. As I explored the Google Play Store, I struggled to figure out which game was legitimate, and which games were just shovelware. I ended up not downloading anything as a result.
brings back good memories of good times...never again
also, i didn't know there was a second movie
I’m glad you enjoyed the video!
Tbf angry birds 2 was the first video game movie that wasnt actually bad. It ended the curse.
Angry Birds was a unicorn that released at the perfect time.. moments like that are almost impossible to recreate
exactly
51 unsuccessful games?! I'm surprised they were even able to stay afloat for that long.
I didn’t even know Angry Birds was going on a downward spiral at all. I didn’t hear much about it, but I still thought it was chugging along just the same as it always has.
As a fan of the franchise, I've been watching them make mistake after mistake for some time. Thanks for putting it all together into one video. (My biggest disappointment was when they stopped supporting previously purchased PC games. I upgraded my PC and reinstalled from CD, only to discover that I couldn't re-download content that had previously been downloaded from the company. Since I hadn't wiped my old PC's hard disk, I tried to figure out how to transfer the content over, but that didn't work correctly either. I still play those older games sometimes, but they feel crippled now. I didn't need them to keep updating the older titles; just leave the bonus levels and other content they had already delivered in place for when it was needed.)
At least some don't get ads anymore
Who uses a CD-ROM drive these days 😂
@@FreelancerFreak Most of the time, my old CD-ROM drive feels neglected. But I still have a decent library of stuff in that format, so not getting rid of it any time soon.
If angry birds "defined" your childhood, then sorry, but you had a pretty crappy childhood
As someone who has been following the games since five days after it was released, it is unfortunate how far Rovio has fallen.
I think one of the main reasons they failed is because of product lifecycle. Lets say that the original angry birds is the product, the new versions of the games help extend the product lifecycle but inevitably all products die so to speak. There is a reason that companies sell/ produce more than one product or service, diversifying your portfolio helps lower risk because there will be times that some are more popular than others and in time outphased and no longer used. That might be one of the most difficult part of managing a company. I would have sold the company after profits started to dip so much. Just because you created a company doesnt mean you need to go down with it. It's an asset it can be sold.
I would like to point out that angry birds is not original or a new idea it was a reskin of a game called crush the castle.
I never though the "Angry Birds" plan was anything _other_ than capitalising on a short term success.
The thought that they _tried_ to build a lasting empire never crossed my mind until this video. I figured the plan from the start was milk as much money as they could and retire.
But, I can also see the even if that was the intention from the start, it is easy to loose track of it and _think_ you are building something lasting, considering their explosive start.
yeah anything that blows up that fast cnt last. They wanted to be Disney or Hello Kitty but with 1% of the time and work
The same can be said about FallGuys....in the beginning, it was fun as all get out. But, then, they joined forces with another developer (or wer bought out, I forget which), and soon even FALLGUYS became the bastard child of pay-for-play scams, with tons of micro-transactions, season passes, and if you wanted the cool "costumes", you could only get them with in-game "currency", which you had to buy. These games now are NEVER free to play. I thought I got a deal when I paid 30 bucks for FG on Steam when it (the game) was first released.
"I figured the plan from the start was milk as much money as they could and retire."
Just came across your channel, amazing work! You've earned yourself a subscriber here!
I was growing up when Angry Birds really blew up, played so many versions of it on my old iPod Touch, my friends and I all owned them at the time and had Angry Birds on it, that's a real trip down memory lane. There were Angry Birds plushies, Angry Birds shirts, all of that, I really remember that. So, recently I wondered where the whole thing had gone...
Thank you so much for the support! I work really hard on these documentaries.
How many different ways can you say the same thing in 12 minutes? Wow.
Angry Birds Space, Bad Piggies, and Toons were kinda fire though
fr
That was part 1 right?? sigh this was so good had me glued to the screen wanting more info. Great video. Just felt it ended abruptly or something lol
to add, I can see how much editing is involved and want to give a shout out to the editor(s)...
Haha maybe I should make a part 2! And thank you, I work really hard on these videos and the support means so much to me! The editing does take a lot haha, cheers mate!
@@TheOfficialHorizonYT yeah it's pretty high quality editing. very entertaining and a great pace. You inspire me to be that good at editing one day. Keep up the good work, your channel will grow with many subs, you deserve it. 👊
The big problem with the mario cart angry birds game, was it's graphics requirements meant that most mobile devices at the time litterally were not able to run it. Only the newest, high end devices could see it to install it. Cutting it's potential user base down to a tiny fraction of those who would have been interested in playing it. For example, I couldn't play it, but my dad could. I wanted to play it, he didn't care.
I fondly remember seeing a fellow student playing Angry Birds during college in the student's lounge, and thinking that it looked interesting, soon found myself playing it often myself. I never played it on my iPhone, seeing as how I didn't have one at the time, which is why I'm glad that it worked just as well on my laptop. It was a very fun game, with equal parts mayhem and strategy. The real gems were the levels were the pigs constructed something elaborate like a ship or airboat, and hitting the right spots would slowly but surely cause the structure to shake itself apart.
I don't think that it was luck that caused Angry Birds to become a success. Clearly, the people on the team that created it were creative, and it was only a matter of time until they created a game that was extremely fun and addictive.
It is sad to see that this series has similarly broken itself into nothing. I no longer have the time to play the games, even if they were still available, but it is sad to see this part of my past has become a victim of greed. The top Rovio execs clearly forgot why we play games in the first place, which is because they are fun and allow us to relax. By focusing on money/micro-transactions (none of which were prevalent back in 2010-2012, and indeed, the games were mostly free to play at the time), they lost sight of why people played them in the first place.
Funnily enough, the concept for Angry Birds was lifted off an Armor Games flash named Crush the Castle :V