Angry Birds – Where Did Those Green Pigs Come From?

Does it seem possible to you that Angry Birds was first released in only 2009? At that time, Rovio, the studio that created Angry Birds, was a small 12-person gaming company working as subcontractors for other companies.

While subcontracting Rovio decided to take the time to work on their own game, they just had to decide on what to create. Designer Jaakko Iisalo’s suggested multiple game designs including angry bunches of birds smashing through things. Everyone, naturally, liked the angry birds. With the decision made, it was time to select an enemy. All through his childhood, Iisalo had been sketching pigs, so therefore the birds would fight little green pigs from that day on.

Even though the design team on the game was small, the whole company played the game through development and helped make it what the game was when released. Once it was released in the App Store and found a following, the game took off.

The Angry Birds have a seasonal game, have moved to Facebook, and wonderfully, have a Star Wars game. The Angry Birds series have now sold 1.7 billion copies and counting. Quite a change from a small 12-person company creating a game of their own.