Rovio Planning To Launch Angry Birds Facebook This May

Rovio's Angry Birds is already a smash success on mobile platforms, with tens of millions of downloads across iPhone and Android, as well as versions for PSP/PlayStation 3 and PC. But the title has yet to arrive on the web's biggest social network, the 500 million user-strong Facebook. The Finland-based studio plans to change that this year. Asked if a Facebook version of the game will arrive this May, Rovio "Bird Whisperer" and spokesperson Ville Heijari told Gamasutra "That is our intent." He was confirming a report about Angry Birds Facebook that first appeared on The Next Web. Heijari added that the goal is to have the game out at least by summer this year. Rovio is adding various social aspects to the game, whose bird-catapulting gameplay is currently is a largely solitary experience. The studio launched Angry Birds in December 2009, and it became the company's first breakout hit. The success appeared to be overnight, but the studio has been around since 2003 and has produced over mobile titles. Most of those games were made during the previous era of mobile gaming, which studio CEO Peter Vesterbacka called "J2ME/Brew hell," in a Game Developers Conference session last week.