Rovio says paid Angry Birds had “negative impact” on free-to-play versions
In the early days of the mobile gaming industry, one game stood out above the rest: Angry Birds. The game, which launched in 2009, quickly became a viral sensation, with millions of users worldwide playing the game on their smartphones. The success of Angry Birds helped to establish Rovio, the Finnish game development company that created the game, as one of the leading players in the mobile gaming industry.
For years, Rovio made a fortune selling paid downloads of the game to tens of millions of smartphone users. But in recent years, the company has shifted its focus to free-to-play titles that rely on microtransactions and in-game ads to generate revenue. As a result, Rovio has been gradually delisting the “pay upfront” versions of Angry Birds from mobile app stores, citing their negative impact on the more lucrative free-to-play titles in the franchise.
The latest casualty of this shift is the remastered “Rovio Classics” version of the original Angry Birds game, which launched last year and asked 99 cents for over 390 ad-free levels, complete with updated graphics and a new, future-proofed engine “built from the ground up in Unity.” In a statement on the game’s Discord server, Angry Birds Community Manager Shawn Buckelew said that sales of the 99-cent “classic” version of Angry Birds were “negatively impacting our other games, which is what we as a company have to focus on.”
Buckelew’s statement underscores the stark economic reality of the mobile gaming industry. In today’s market, very few mobile users are willing to pay upfront for their games. Instead, they expect games to be free to download and play, with microtransactions and in-game ads providing the revenue stream. This business model has proven to be highly lucrative for companies like Rovio, which have been able to generate massive revenues from their free-to-play titles.
For example, Rovio’s Angry Birds 2 game, which is free to download and play, attracted 900,000 new free-to-play downloads last month and raked in over $9 million in revenue, according to Sensor Tower estimates. But that strong revenue number is only enough to make Angry Birds 2 the 74th highest-grossing iOS game on the current iOS charts. In contrast, the 99-cent “classic” version of Angry Birds is currently the No. 2 best-selling paid download among all games on the iOS App Store, well over a decade after its initial release (and nearly a year after its rerelease). However, that chart-topping position translates to just $30,000 in estimated monthly revenue, according to Sensor Tower estimates.
The vast gulf in potential revenues between top-performing free-to-play and pay-to-own mobile titles highlights the difficult economic choices that game development companies like Rovio must make. On the one hand, they must create games that are compelling enough to attract large numbers of users and generate significant revenues. On the other hand, they must balance the short-term revenue potential of their games with the long-term health of their business.
For Rovio, the decision to delist the “classic” version of Angry Birds from mobile app stores is a clear indication that the company has chosen to prioritize the long-term health of its business over short-term revenue gains. By focusing on its free-to-play titles and phasing out its pay-to-own titles, Rovio is betting that it can continue to attract large numbers of users and generate significant revenues well into the future. Only time will tell whether this bet will pay off.
All You Need To Know About How Much Did Flappy Bird Make? – Business Of Apps