I admit. I came late to this one. Simply because I am not big on computer games. This is something I have always wanted to get into, and yet very rarely would it happen. I would see people around me spend weeks on end with MYST or some shoot'm up engine, and though I would try to develop the right kind of enthusiasm for it, somehow it wound't stick. Over the years there were probably 3 or 4 games that I would stay with until I reached some level of proficiency, but overall it just wasn't my thing.
And then I installed Angry Birds HD on the iPad. The rest is a blur. It used to be that I would get very productive with work late at night. These days late at night is usually accompanied by the sound of birds crashing through wood or glass and pigs puffing away.
Angry Birds is one of these phenomena whose success was probably a bigger surprise to the people who spawned it than to the public at large. I doubt the small Finnish company that came out with the game ever expected that they would sell 50 million copies of the game across pretty much every mobile platform available by the time the game marked its first birthday. And all this with a project that cost them $100,000 to develop. It just goes to show that sometimes less is more and that a well executed simple idea can often trump multimillion dollar sophistication without making too many waves.
The game has also managed to cross over into popular culture, with Angry Bird Halloween costumes, TV skits, and now Angry Bird cakes.
Of course Hollywood is never far behind when a story meets with such success. The people at Rovio have been very clever about that as well. First of all they have the in-game trailer which hints at potentially something more.
And finally, lest anyone have any doubt about it, they produced this cinematic trailer which seems to intimate that the Angry Birds would one day grace the screens of our neighbourhood multiplex.
This too shall pass one day. But until then I will continue to feed this addiction with total abandon. Better let the birds be angry than me.