Two million happy Android owners download free Angry Birds over the weekend

Angry Birds is quickly gaining the attention of pretty much everyone who owns a smartphone. After selling millions of downloads on the iPhone, it has been making its way to Android phones at the rate ofone million copiesper day.

Non-iPhone ownershave been reading great things about Angry Birds for some time, but until recently have only been able to download a "lite" version of the game. That changed last Friday when the full game was made available for freeon Android. All that built-up hype, with a little help from the price, led to a massive number of downloads.

Angry Birds was initially made available on Androidfor freeon a third-party app service called GetJar. So many people logged on to download the game that GetJar's servers crashed. Even so,one million downloads managed to squeeze through the clogged servers in the first day.

Above: Angry Birds' intoxicatingly simple gameplay - slingshot birds into structures and green pigs

After that, the download became available in the official Android Market, adding another million to the ticker in the next day. It may not sound like a lot for a game that's free, but it is. There has been no other game, no matter the cost,which has reached that level of momentum on Android.

Neither developer Rovio nor publisher Chillingo have made any money from the free downloads - it's been an attempt to gain momentum on Android devices -butthey will be putting out additional premium content in the future. Meanwhile, iPhone gamers still have to pay 99 cents for their opportunity to play Angry Birds. Seven million of them already have.

[Source:Rovio Twitter]

Oct 18, 2010

Angry Birds discounted on Android - now free!
Despite having already sold over seven million copies at 99 cents a piece

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Looks like someone jumped the gun