Rovio’s boss has a pretty optimistic view towards piracy – he says that it “can get us” more business, and spread awareness. I see a lot of holes in that logic, since big budget AAA games cannot be exposed to risks like that, but his view makes a little sense when you think about it.
“We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products,” said Hed to The Guardian.
“We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy.”
Again, these are completely different things, but he mentions that it is futile to go after pirates.
“We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have,” he said.
“If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow.”
It seems there may be more partnerships between Angry Birds and music artists in the future, too. Hed explained that Rovio sees Angry Birds as a bona-fide “channel” now, with people spending so much time in the app, it is competing with the most popular TV shows in the US in terms of time spent.
“Already our apps are becoming channels, and we can use that channel to cross-promote – to sell further content,” he said. “The content itself has transformed into the channel, and the traditional distribution channels are no longer the kingmakers.”
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