How Angry Birds Saved Rovio Mobile from Bankruptcy

n 2009, the Finland-based company Rovio Mobile was a 6-year old company that developed 51 unsuccessful games. With bankruptcy knocking on its door, Rovio needed a new idea. That’s how Angry Birds came to life; programmers put their heads together and presented several proposals to a team of designers. The angry looking birds caught their eye, so they decided to use them. So far, it seems that Rovio made the right decision
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The game, which features cute, but angry birds who try to eliminate the green pigs for stealing their eggs, became the number 1 paid application in the United States, and was downloaded for more than 200 million times so far. Even Justin Bieber declared that he loves the game.

Rovio is currently not focusing on developing another game, since this one had such a great success, but is working on creating Angry Birds-themed merchandise, such as plush toys, backpacks, phone cases and even baby products. Ville Heijari, VP of franchise development, admitted that focusing solely on the game was never Rovio’s plan. Instead, they are trying to create a new brand name with recognizable characters. The developer is following Walt Disney’s idea from the ‘50s, when he started to use his films to attract people to Disneyland, where they purchased staggering amounts of Disney merchandise, like the Mickey Mouse ears.
The revenue that Rovio is getting from all the licensing contracts for Angry Birds products, plus the earnings from downloads sure brought the company a long way from going bankrupt.