Star guest during last week's Gamelab Mobile event (framed inside Mobile World Congress Barcelona) was Peter Vesterbacka, key talent behind the creation of Angry Birds, and one of the main heads at Rovio, the Nordic studio responsible for its success.
During a panel focused on what the future holds for the best-selling franchise, there was really no new announcement related to games or even electronic entertainment. Vesterbacka directly admits that Angry Birds is now a brand and thus, despite keeping the digital market in mind, Rovio is looking to diversify the IP and take the brand in new commercially driven directions.
"We are the seventh best-known brand in the world. Coca-Cola has one billion daily users, and we want to reach that. Almost half of Angry Birds 2014 benefits came from toys, and that's the reason we at Rovio are focusing on building a brand. Compared to others we're pretty young; five years are nothing. It's a good start, but nothing more. Now we want to be the leading brand in China, America, Japan."
Vesterbacka also mentioned Super Mario and Mickey Mouse as good examples, praising Nintendo's and Disney's work in that regard, underlining that Angry Birds has to be like those iconic characters.