{"id":1110802,"date":"2023-02-24T11:58:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T16:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1110802"},"modified":"2023-02-24T11:58:41","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T16:58:41","slug":"rovio-delists-pay-to-own-angry-birds-because-it-hurt-free-to-play-earnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1110802","title":{"rendered":"Rovio delists pay-to-own Angry Birds because it hurt free-to-play earnings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"rss-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ab-copy-800x480-1.jpg\" alt=\"Angry bird is angry.\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"font-size:0.8em\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ab-copy.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"600\" data-width=\"1000\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Angry bird is angry. (credit: Rovio)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div><a name=\"page-1\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Back in the days before practically every mobile game was a free-to-play, ad- and microtransaction-laden sinkhole, Rovio found <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/467457\/angry-birds-has-dominated-the-app-store-rankings-longer-than-any-other-paid-app\">years of viral success<\/a> selling paid downloads of <em>Angry Birds<\/em> to <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20101218010319\/http:\/\/symbian-freak.com\/news\/010\/12\/angry_birds_hits_42_million_free_and_paid_downloads.htm\">tens of millions of smartphone users<\/a>. Today, though, the company is delisting the last &#8220;pay upfront&#8221; version of the game from mobile app stores because of what it says is a &#8220;negative impact&#8221; on the more lucrative free-to-play titles in the franchise.<\/p>\n<p>Years after its 2009 launch, the original <em>Angry Birds<\/em> was first pulled from mobile app stores in 2019, a move Rovio <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rovio.com\/articles\/a-letter-to-our-fans\/\">later blamed<\/a> on &#8220;outdated game engines and design.&#8221; The remastered &#8220;Rovio Classics&#8221; version of the original game <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rovio.com\/articles\/a-classic-returns-rovio-classics-angry-birds-launches-today\/\">launched last year<\/a>, asking 99 cents for over 390 ad-free levels, complete with updated graphics and a new, future-proofed engine &#8220;built from the ground up in Unity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Rovio\/status\/1627956351002443778\">a tweeted statement earlier this week<\/a>, though, Rovio announced that it is delisting <em>Rovio Classics: Angry Birds<\/em> from the Google Play Store and renaming the game <em>Red&#8217;s First Flight<\/em> on the iOS App Store (presumably to make it less findable in an &#8220;Angry Birds&#8221; search). That&#8217;s because of the game&#8217;s &#8220;impact on our wider games portfolio,&#8221; Rovio said, including &#8220;live&#8221; titles such as <em>Angry Birds 2<\/em>, <em>Angry Birds Friends<\/em>, and <em>Angry Birds Journey<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1919848#p3\">Read 6 remaining paragraphs<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1919848&amp;comments=1\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Ars Technica &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1919848\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rovio delists pay-to-own Angry Birds because it hurt free-to-play earnings<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge \/ Angry bird is angry. (credit: Rovio) Back in the days before practically every mobile game was a free-to-play, ad- and microtransaction-laden sinkhole, Rovio found years of viral success selling paid downloads of Angry Birds to tens of millions &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1110802\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1110803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1110802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1110802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1110803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1110802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1110802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1110802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}