Just after Rovio Mobile nearly brought the Internet to a halt by releasing Angry Birds as a free app for Android owners, the developer published a special Halloween edition specifically for the Apple App Store last week. Since its launch six days ago, the game has seen just over a million downloads. At $0.99 per purchase, that $990,000 USD in Rovio's pocket thus far.
"Angry Birds Halloween and Angry Birds Halloween HD stormed the App Store charts across the world on iPhone, iPod and iPad, reaching #1 in the US and UK within 24 hours of launch," the developer said. "We’re delighted too see such fantastic reception for Angry Birds Halloween! We intend to continue creating more and more quality products and updates, and keep exceeding the expectations of our fans worldwide."
Prior to the Halloween edition, Rovio launched the free, ad-ridden version of its popular bird-based puzzle game on independent app store GetJar. The company said that GetJar was originally chosen for its "global reach," as the Android Market is available in 46 countries yet developers can only offer paid apps in 13 countries. Eventually Angry Birds was published on Google's Android Market anyway, remaining free with in-game ads intact, and has thus racked in over 3 million downloads since its release.
Last week Electronic Arts revealed that it purchased Angry Birds publisher Chillingo, however the deal did not include the Angry Birds IP. According to Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka, the developer only worked with Chillingo on the original iPhone/iPad version and has published everything else themselves. “We will not use Chillingo again,” he said, adding that the role of the publisher has diminished in modern game development.
The original Angry Birds game has sold 6.5 million copes on Apple App Store since its release in December 2009. Angry Birds currently costs $0.99 and Angry Birds Halloween costs $0.99 on the App Store. Rovio said it's currently working on Angry Bird updates for Android, Symbian^3, Palm WebOS and the Nokia N900.
