Angry Birds worth at least as much as FarmVille, Rovio exec says

The Mighty Eagle has dollar signs in its eyes, as Rovio chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka said recently to Finnish magazine Kauppalehti Optio that his company is worth several billion dollars, MSNBC reports. And by, "several million," Vesterbacka means somewhere in the FarmVille range--he noted to estimates that Zynga was worth $20 to $25 billion (which sounds a bit inaccurate to me)--according to MSNBC.

But Bloomberg recently reported that the Angry Birds creator was worth at least $1.2 billion, and this valuation would mean Rovio is 100 percent viable to compete with Zynga. I've never read it being discussed seriously, the two being competitors, but perhaps those talks will start now. Rovio could be the second major company of the new age of publishers to combat the first. (And here we thought the birds were looking to get bought.) Rovio is looking for 1 billion users, and fast. Perhaps Zynga was more of a motivation to the birds than previously imagined.

"We are not selling though - unless somebody offers enough," Vesterbacka was quoted saying in the interview published on Thursday, according to MSNBC. The exec went on to say that Rovio plans to list on the New York stock market within three years. If Rovio can enter new territory with the Angry Birds and take full advantage of the freemium model, then there is no reason it can't be a viable competitor to Zynga.

The more Rovio attempts to introduce the Angry Birds to new media (and sources of revenue), the further it will inch toward defeating Zygna, which only is within a single, though massive market. What I'm getting at is to warn you that there is more swiping and harvesting in your gaming future where the first three years of it came from.

Stadiums full of people become Angry Birds players with Uplause

Could the Angry Birds replace the proverbial demands of "Make Some Noise" at your next baseball game? Maybe not your next one, but soon you could be cheering to fling the irate winged beasts into their plump green enemies. Pocket Gamer reports that Uplause, a Finnish developer of crowd-based games, has rebuilt Angry Birds with its creator, Rovio, into a version controlled by noise.

The self-proclaimed "social game maker for big crowds" has created similar games for use in stadiums for ice hockey games, soccer matches and even music festivals. Over the past summer, Uplause worked with Rovio to create a version of Angry Birds that is controlled using noise as an input device. (Namely, cheering, clapping, stomping and perhaps even booing, we assume.)

"As in the original, there's about a four second period before firing," Uplause CEO Veli-Pekka Marin explained to Pocket Gamer. "For live events, we'd expect each gaming session to take a few minutes." But in that time, thousands of folks will play at the same time. If anything, it's terribly efficient.

While all we know about this seriously social version of Angry Birds is that noise generates power for the game's slingshot, Pocket Gamer guesses that aiming is done automatically. Rovio and Uplause will first test this massive version of Angry Birds at a Formula 1 race taking place in Singapore this weekend, and the company's CMO Peter Vesterbacka sounds excited for its imminent global expansion.

"Through social participation, our fans will get to interact with the Angry Birds in an entirely new way," Vesterbacka said to Pocket Gamer. "We think this new form of gaming will give fans a great opportunity to form a strong emotional connection with the characters." I think Vesterbacka is confusing "emotional connection" with "drunken, crowd-fueled stupor." Check out the video below to get an idea of how it might work. Who knows you might be doing the same thing at the next World Series.


What do you imagine a noise-controlled version of Angry Birds would be like? What other games come to mind when you think of this approach?