Bizarre: Now an Angry Birds theme park
21.05.12
Angry Birds maker Rovio is teaming up with a major US retail chain to sell its merchandise, and plans to open themed activity parks in Britain, as it continues to expand beyond mobile games to establish a Disney-style brand, it said on Tuesday.
Peter Vesterbacka, marketing chief of the Finnish start-up behind the world's most downloaded game, told Reuters that Rovio saw itself as an entertainment brand, not just a games company.
"We want to make Angry Birds a permanent part of pop culture," Peter Vesterbacka said in an interview in London, comparing the brand to Sanrio's Hello Kitty or Nintendo's Mario. "We're just getting started."
Angry Birds, in which the player uses a slingshot to catapult birds to destroy green pigs hidden in fortresses, has been downloaded more than 700 million times, and is the fastest-growing game on Facebook.
Rovio raised its profile hugely last year by hitching a game to the hit animated movie Rio, made by News Corp's 20th Century Fox, even burying a clue to the game in the movie studio's Super Bowl ad.
Source: Emirates 24/7