Angry Birds creator fires back at Nintendo's 'casual gaming' comments

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Indie dev says he's not ruining the industry

For a company that earned its fame and fortune with an iPhone game, Nintendo's sweeping comments about how the smartphone gaming market could ruin the industry hit close to home. Now Rovio has responded to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime's statements.

Fils-Aime recently said that 99-cent mobile games are making it more difficult to sell quality, $50-$60 software titles, calling them 'disposable.' Although he called out Angry Birds specifically as a good iPhone game, Rovio didn't entirely agree with the comment...

"It’s interesting to see people like Nintendo saying smartphones are destroying the games industry," said the independent studio's head honcho Peter Vesterbacka. "If I was trying to sell a $49 piece of plastic to people then yes, I’d be worried too."

He said that sort of concern is a "good sign" because it means mobile developers like Rovio are "doing something right."

"Look, the console market is important, but it’s also... It’s not dying, but not the fastest growing platform out there. So we don’t see it the way others do. A lot of people in the games industry, they think the 'real' games are on consoles. You’re only a 'real' games company if you do a big budget game. But we don’t have that inferiority complex," Vesterbacka declared.

Meanwhile, are the 3DS launch games really worth $40? Really?

[Source: MCV]

Mar 30, 2011