Finnish entertainment company Rovio Mobile’s CMO Peter Vesterbacka said at Thursday’s Slush Up event in Beijing that they want to be seen not just as a game maker, but also as a global entertainment brand. The Angry Birds Movie premiere in China is set for May 20.
“93% of Chinese people know the red bird in our game Angry Birds, but I don’t think they know that Rovio is the creator of the game,” Vesterbacka told AllChinaTech.
Rovio started as a student project in 2003. It made 51 games before it came up with Angry Birds in 2009. According to Vesterbacka, Rovio’s Angry Birds has become the most downloaded game of all time, with over three billion downloads globally. One billion of these downloads were from China.
Rovio’s tentacles have also expanded to animation and licensing. Vesterbacka said Rovio reached a partnership with Alibaba on the licensing of Angry Birds consumer products and e-commerce in mainland China on Thursday, ahead of the release of the company’s 3D Angry Birds Movie in China and the US on May 20.
“We produced The Angry Birds Movie on our own. We spent USD 80 million on production and USD 100 million on marketing,” said Vesterbacka.
“We will come up with more games and movies in 2016. Maybe you will be able to eat our Angry Birds mooncakes during the mid-autumn festival in China.”
(Top photo from wap.3533.com)
