Bad Piggies Fly to Top of Apple App Store

Bad Piggies, the newest game launched by Finnish Rovio Entertainment, the creators of Angry Birds.
Vesa Moilanen | AFP | Getty Images
Bad Piggies, the newest game launched by Finnish Rovio Entertainment, the creators of Angry Birds.

Rovio's latest game, Bad Piggies, has been available for less than 24 hours and is already topping the charts on Apple's app store.

The Angry Birds sequel is currently the most downloaded paid app on both Apple iPads and iPhones and has received positive reviews from users.

Rovio, which was founded in 2003, gained global recognition after the launch of its trademark game, Angry Birds, in 2009. By the end of 2011, the game had over a billion downloads and was still topping the charts of gaming apps, success that the company hopes to recreate with Bad Piggies.

"The most important thing here is simply that the core game play of the game needs to be fantastic for it to have any chance to survive and I believe that's what we've done with Bad Piggies," said Rovio's CEO Mikael Hed. "It's a lot also about the world and the characters that you create and also about constant updating of the content, always offering more and more to the fans."

While Rovio, a Finnish company, caters to a global audience, the game maker finds the U.S. market a "good and strong launching point," Hed told CNBC's European Closing Bell Thursday.

Hed said Bad Piggies, which was released for iOS and Google Android platforms Thursday, became a number one selling game in Apple's App Store in about four hours, a possible sign that the new game will mean big business for the company.

"If the sales of bad piggies are anything to go by...then I think that we are well set," Hed said. "We have plenty to do in the next few years."



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