Recent Drama Has Fans Angry, but the Birds Are Missing…

Imagine this: It’s late 2009 and a new game is released on the app store by a Finnish company named Rovio Entertainment. It’s a straightforward, yet addicting game where you launch birds from a slingshot, aiming to destroy green pigs and take back the eggs that they stole. It was such a simple idea, however it pioneered the mobile gaming market. It would be an understatement to say that a game like this made history. Selling for 99¢, Angry Birds was released on Maemo and iOS in December of 2009. It would come to other devices like Android and BlackBerry in October of 2010 after managing to sell over 12 million copies. The franchise expanded into many other popular games (Seasons, Space, Star Wars, Rio), all with their own new gimmicks to match the birds. It even managed to get a movie in 2016, as well as a sequel in 2019 produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation.

April of 2019 arrives, and all of the classic games have been removed from the app store. Nobody knew what happened and Rovio was quiet about the situation, that is until two years later. On the 22nd of June, 2021, an article titled “A letter to our fans” was published on Rovio’s website. In short, the company stated that it was hard to keep the original games running without providing updates to match “all sorts of platform requirements,” explaining the ever-evolving industry of mobile games (Rovio). It just wasn’t compatible on the newer devices anymore, and Rovio wanted to focus on their live games. A foreshadowing of a new project for the Angry Birds franchise brought their letter to a close, however, peeking the interest of fans.

Fast-forward to the 31st of March, 2022. Rovio released a recreation of the original game, called “Rovio Classics: Angry Birds,” using the Unity engine and providing a near identical experience. Compared to the franchise’s newer games (Evolution, Dream Blast, Journey), the recreation had no inn-app purchases or advertisements, aside for their other games. This brought hope for many people that Rovio would return their deleted games, providing fans with the nostalgia and simple fun that was lost. Assuming that you’ve read the title, this hope was acquired in vain.

On the 21st of February, 2023, Rovio made an announcement on Twitter revealing that “Rovio Classics: Angry Birds” would no longer be available on the Google Play Store, officially delisting the game on the 23rd. The company explained the reasoning to be the game’s “impact on [their] wider games portfolio,” though reassuring that the game would still be playable on devices that already had it downloaded. Additionally, the game will remain on the iOS App Store, though ditching its original title for “Red’s First Flight.”

This decision has caused frustration and speculation as to what Rovio means by the game’s impact. Angry Birds has provided nothing short of a cultural influence, especially in that of the mobile and video game scene. Their newer games have taken a similar style to their movie counterparts, as well as having an influx of microtransactions and advertisements that are shoved down the throats of those who play it. This causes the games not as enjoyable as they used to be, driving away new and former fans.  The fact that this game has been removed twice shows how little video game history and preservation is taken seriously. This form of entertainment has had a major impact on everyone in some way. Making the game unplayable and stripping the franchise of its charm makes many believe that they are only interested in the profit of their games, instead of the quality. What will come next from Rovio Entertainment? Time can only tell. Until then, these iconic birds are not the only ones left angry from this situation…