Mobile Games, Angry Birds | featured news

Rovio has had more than 1 billion downloads of its games focused on its wildly successful Angry Birds franchise. But can it have as much success with its next franchise? Peter Vesterbacka, the quirky CMO of Rovio, wearing an Angry Birds sweatshirt, talked about Amazing Alex, the first non bird-pig game from Rovio, at the GamesBeat conference in San Francisco Tuesday.

Angry Birds is migrating to China. Rovio, the Finnish gaming company behind Angry Birds has opened its Shanghai office and outlined plans for activity parks and stores across China, one of its biggest markets.

Tuomas Erikoinen, the man who drew the hit "Angry Birds" app, doesn't really resent his creation. He's just bored with it. He sees the game's grumpy, ball-shaped, wingless birds everywhere he goes, their furrowed brows staring him down. Here in Finland's capital, where "Angry Birds" began, Erikoinen's drawings have been turned into T-shirts, "plushie" stuffed animals and two brands of soft drinks -- Tropic and Paradise.

How time-wasting video games escaped the arcade, jumped into our pockets and took over our lives.

The company behind the Angry Birds mobile phone game sensation wants to list on the stock market.

We all know Angry Birds has been downloaded loads of times. My personal estimate was somewhere around a million-kabillion, but developer Rovio's latest figures put me off by just a few.

The hit game is one of the unlikeliest pop-culture crazes of the year — and perhaps the first to make the leap from cellphone screens to the mainstream.