A benefit to making one of the most successful mobile games on the planet is it gives one the right to predict the death of traditional gaming without being immediately laughed out of the room. Over the weekend, Rovio boss and Angry Bird's lead developer Peter Vesterbacka exercised that right during a panel discussion atthe South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, where he insisted console games were 'dying', and mobile games were now the true source of innovation.
In a talk that took place Sunday afternoon, Vesterbacka argued mobile developers were more 'nimble' than traditional studios, and therefore able to offerbetter content at a greater frequency than their console competition. Though he admitted Rovio has yet tofigure out the ideal business model for mobile gaming, Vesterbacka said charging upwards of $50 for games that are “difficult to upgrade”cannot fly for very much longer.
Opining on the “casual gaming” label itself, Vesterbacka added the term was well past its expiration date and not at all reflective of the creative and substantialwork coming out of the mobile and social gaming industry.
These are tough words from a studio that's only been in the spotlight for a couple years. Still, Angry Birdsis reported to havesurpassed 100 million downloadsthis past Saturday, and Rovio recently secured a $42 million investment from two noted venture capital firms, Accel Partners and Atomico Ventures. Who knows, maybethere's some truth to what thelittle birds are telling us.
[Source:GamesBeat]
Mar 14, 2011
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