Raging Poultry Invades Society: The Angry Birds Craze

Birds are rocketing past, structures are crumbling to the ground. Pigs are running rampant through the streets. No, this is not the apocalypse. It is the setting for the popular game Angry Birds. Since its release in December 2009, almost everyone plays or has played this addicting platform game, available on numerous electronic devices.

The goal of the game is to recover the eggs that the green pigs have stolen. To do this, the player must use their finger or mouse to slingshot birds across the screen into structures that the pigs have devised, in the hopes that the materials will fall down and smash the pigs to pieces. Various birds have different destructive abilities that make this game very fun and addicting.

 

“Once Angry Birds became successful in the gaming industry, consumers could not get enough of it.”

The funny thing about it is that the game is nothing new. Throwing objects to knock stuff down is what we have been doing all our lives. Think about setting up block towers as a toddler, then smashing them to bits while imaginary citizens cried out in dismay. In this case, the weapon was the toddler’s hand, but the result is still the same. So what is it about          AngryBirds that has everybody so excited?

The answer: the characters. Cute, fluffy, and irritated, the birds of Angry Birds are what make the game so special. With their bright colors and humorous shapes that give away some of these little guys’ special abilities, the birds have more to do with the game’s success than anything else.

Let us not forget about the villainous pigs either. Most people who have played Angry Birds will agree that when a single pig survives a barrage of attacks and grins with his black and blue face, it is incredibly irritating. What right does that pig have to steal the birds’ eggs, and furthermore, why does he mock them with that menacing smile? According to Edge-online, Angry Birds reached a billion downloads  just two and a half years after its release. More than anything else, the creatures of Angry Birds is what caused its instant success.

Once Angry Birds became successful in the gaming industry, consumers could not get enough of it. Along with the creative characters that made even the most avid gamer smile in amusement, expansion packs became available on a regular basis, from places such as Barnes and Noble. Every season has its own expansion pack associated with Angry Birds, including Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter.

Whether or not everybody likes Angry Birds, it appears that it will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

At one point, a movie-game collaboration occurred when Angry Birds released an expansion related to the up-and-coming movie “Rio,” also associated with birds. However, this is only the start of what Angry Birds has developed into.

After the success of the original game, a shift occurred from the playing of the game to the purchasing of merchandise associated with it. Merchandise has always been available on the Angry Birds website, which features items such as iPhone cases, lanyards, pillows, and much more . Especially with the start of the school year, t-shirts and backpacks with Angry Birds on them became abundant, as did related notebooks and lunch boxes.

In May of 2012, Walmart struck a deal with the producers of Angry Birds to run a promotional campaign linked with the release of the new Angry Birds Space expansion.

Everywhere you look, Angry Birds is there. For example,  in my family, we own Angry Birds stuffed animals, all of the kids have at least one Angry Birds shirt, and we certainly have Angry Birds on the iPad. My younger siblings are more eager about owning their shirts than they have ever been about playing the game. That in itself says something profound about the industry surrounding the Angry Birds franchise.