SEGA parent company SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS has announced that it has arrived at a deal with Angry Birds developer Rovio to acquire the company for € 700 million ($770 million). The move comes as SEGA aims to “further strengthen its position in this fast-growing mobile and global gaming market.”
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In an interesting announcement today, game developer Rovio shared that it’s renaming and/or pulling its Rovio Classics: Angry Birds on the App Store and Google Play Store. According to the company, the original title is hurting the viability of Angry Birds 2 and the other modern Angry Birds releases. Fortunately, it looks like the Apple Arcade version is safe for the time being.
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Angry Birds is certainly one of the most popular mobile games of all time, with different versions introduced since 2009. Rovio, the company behind the game, is now bringing the original Angry Birds game back to the App Store with a new engine and no in-app purchases.
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A range of studies have shown that popular games are sending data to multiple third-party entities, and even the developers concerned may not know what data is being sent to whom.
Angry Birds, for example, knowingly sends advertising data to 43 entities, but developer Rovio turned out to be unaware of additional data sent through third-party SDKs …
Angry Birds got a new lease of life when it came to the Magic Leap, Oculus Rift and Vive headsets. But Rovio is now bringing the augmented reality experience to mobile for the first time, initially exclusive to iPhone and iPad.
It will be available later this spring, but will be available for pre-order from later today …
A new Angry Birds title is out for iOS and it’s bringing a new take on the franchise. This time around, players will slingshot the well-known birds and compete for real money.
Rovio has updated Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds Evolution for the NFL season with football content.
Bird Island has been tuned into the NFL season thanks to some tinkering from Dr. Strangebird. Now the whole island is hyped up for Super Bowl LII! Join the celebration to collect a brand new bird – The Quarterback, and hit the gridiron for a game of Pigball in the NFLed-out Mighty Metrodome …
Tomorrow will mark three months since the launch of iOS 8.4 and Apple Music, and this means that the first free trial sign-ups will begin expiring. In its latest push to retain users, Apple has begun emailing users with set-to-expire trials as well as pushing notifications to their devices. As can be seen in the image above, the notification encourages users to renew.
As we learned in the summer, users who do not manually end their free trial with Apple Music will be automatically opted into continuing their subscription for either $9.99 or $14.99 (family plan). Users who wish to not continue with Apple Music can disable their subscriptions manually via their iTunes account page. Last week, our own Ben Lovejoy weighed the pros and cons of Apple Music in order to make his own renewal decision.
Update 1: The list of apps has now been updated with apps identified by Dutch security company Fox-IT. The company is reporting seeing malware traffic from the apps in Europe.
Update 2: Rovio has advised that only the version of Angry Birds 2 in the Chinese App Store was affected.
I wish to clarify that Rovio can confirm that only the Chinese build of Angry Birds 2 — available only on the App Store in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau — is vulnerable to the security issue. All other builds of Angry Birds 2 available in other countries are completely safe and secure. An update of Angry Birds 2 for customers in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau that fixes the issue is coming very shortly.
After yesterday’s revelation that hundreds of iOS apps on the App Store had been infected by malware, security company Palo Alto Networks has posted a list of some of the affected apps – which include Angry Birds 2.
The apps were infected by a fake copy of Xcode dubbed XcodeGhost, unwittingly downloaded by Chinese developers in place of the real thing. It’s believed they downloaded the fake from local servers because it took too long to download the original from Apple’s own servers. It’s not yet known why Apple’s own checks did not detect the malware when apps were submitted to the App Store.
It’s been suggested that over 300 apps are infected, with 31 of them so far identified (list below) …
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Rovio has finally released the long-awaited sequel to the original Angry Birds hit mobile game. Since the first title saw phenomenal success on the iOS App Store, the game has gone on to amazing heights with tons of spinoffs. With several official movie tie-ins, including the popular Star Wars titles, Angry Birds is the ultimate success story of the mobile app world. And now, Angry Birds 2 is available to download.
The game retains the key features, in that you fling birds with a catapult in an attempt to destroy blocks and kill green pigs. However, it does have some new features. Some levels now have multiple stages to complete, and you have to choose which bird to launch next. You can challenge other players and there are even more magic spells too, to help you complete difficult levels. As always, there are plenty of pig bosses to wipe out.
It’s free to download and has the expected in-app purchases. Download the app from the App Store.
You can watch the official gameplay trailer below
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From 9to5Toys.com:
Unlike most App Store promos, Apple has now quietly kicked off one the largest iOS game/app sales we have seen this year. The news comes courtesy of participating app developer Readdle.
The sale includes 100 apps and games at “new low prices”, most of which are $0.99. While we have posted some of these titles over the past week in our daily/game app roundups, this is the first time they’ve all appeared together in one giant sale. Now is your chance to fill up your app library, as we are seeing all-time lows on games, productivity apps, photography apps and much more.
A couple standouts are Pixelmator (Reg. $5), GoodReader (Reg. $5), The Room Two (Reg. $3), Rayman Jungle Run (Reg. $3), BADLAND (Reg. $4), Real Racing (Reg. $5), Angry Birds titles, and well, far too many to mention here. Not even including the insanely popular Angry Birds games, just these apps alone combine for a 4+ star rating from 100,000 reviews.
If there is still a couple apps you can’t find in this sale, then be sure to hit our daily roundups for even more discounted options and the new Free App of the Week.
You can also download Screenium 3 on Mac for 50% off (Reg. $50) for a limited time.
It seems an age since Angry Birds first rose to prominence as the best-selling mobile game going. After countless spin-offs and movie tie-ins, it’s about to get its first proper sequel. Rovio announced in a blog post this morning that Angry Birds 2 will officially launch on July 30th.
With 3 billion game downloads, millions of fans across the globe, multiple mashups and spin-offs, collaborations with A-list celebrities and much more, we’re really proud that Angry Birds is the mother of all mobile game apps. And now we’re proud to announce the mother of all sequels – Angry Birds 2!
Rovio hasn’t announced exactly what to expect or which platforms it’ll be available on, but it does say that it will make its way to “app stores worldwide” in two weeks, suggesting that it will almost certainly be available on the most popular platforms: Android and iOS.
Hit the Angry Birds 2 website to sign up and be notified as soon as it’s available. In the mean time, you can grab a bunch of the more popular Angry Birds titles for free, or just $1 in Rovio’s iOS sale.
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Best Buy 2-day sale: Moto 360 from $220, iPad mini 2 $250, Jawbone UP $30, Beats deals, more
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Rovio’s latest game in the Angry Birds series, Angry Birds Transformers, has rolled out worldwide today after its earlier soft-launch last month in New Zealand, Finland, Canada and Australia.
Angry Birds and Transformers collide in this action-packed, 3D shoot ’em up adventure! The EggSpark has transformed the eggs into crazed robots who are destroying Piggy Island, but who can stop them?! Autobirds, roll out!
Gamers have been waiting for quite some time as the Transformers mash-up game was first announced back in June …
After months of teasing, Angry Birds Transformers is now available in select parts of the world. Gamers in New Zealand and Finland can now sample Rovio’s mashup of fowl and robots, with Canada and Australia set to follow soon afterwards. In addition to a soft launch for its new title, Rovio released a new gameplay trailer, revealing that this won’t be your typical Angry Birds title.
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The latest Angry Birds edition, Stella, hit the app store today, with pink, female characters apparently designed to appeal to girls. The game itself, though, is a variation on the familiar theme of firing birds at pigs hidden in the scenery …
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Seagate Backup Plus 5TB Desktop External USB 3.0 Hard Drive $168 shipped (Reg. $220)
Samsung 51″ Plasma $400 new/$330 refurb (Reg. $500), Sharp 32″LED w/ $100 Dell GC $250 ($410 value)
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Rovio today launched Angry Birds Epic for free in the iTunes App Store globally after a brief soft launch in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.
Get ready for a bird-tastic FREE RPG adventure filled with “weapons” (whatever they could get ahold of), magic, bad guys and silly hats! Lead your feathery team into battle now – it’s going to be EPIC!
EPIC BATTLES! Turn-based battles between our heroic flock of warriors and those green snout-nosed scoundrels! It’s easy to play, but difficult to master!
EPIC WORLDS! Explore a fantasy Piggy Island with everything from tribal villages and frosty mountains to tropical beaches and mysterious caves!
EPIC CHARACTERS! Join Red, Chuck, Bomb and the other heroes as they face King Pig, Wiz Pig, Prince Porky and many more villains!
EPIC UPGRADES! Level up your characters, armor, weapons and potions to become a legendary hero ready to take on the mightiest pig warrior!
EPIC WEAPONS! Craft amazing battle-winning weapons like a wooden sword, frying pan or stick thingy with a sponge on top!
EPIC HUMOR! Plenty of offbeat humor and tons of quirky characters dressed in awesomely silly costumes – like a prickly cactus hat and a matching sword.
Phone Arena called it great for casual gamers but too simple and repetitive for hardcore gamers.
Overall, Angry Birds Epic is one of those must-try casual games. Chances are that hardcore gamers will find it too simple and shallow for their taste, but those who consider themselves casual gamers will surely love Rovio’s newest creation. The game is easy to learn, easy to play, and easy to put down when there’s more serious business to be done, which makes it a great choice for killing a few minutes while waiting for the bus. Although we wouldn’t mind spending an afternoon stashing loot, crafting weapons, and laying waste to those grunting green pigs. Best of all, we never had the feeling that we were being pushed towards buying extra in-game currency (which costs real money, by the way) so don’t be worried about IAPs spoiling your experience. The only thing you might be bothered by are the full-screen pop-up ads that appear from time to time.
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Angry Birds maker Rovio is today launching its latest title in the App Store with the release of ‘Retry,’ a game that appears to be inspired by the gameplay and retro 8-bit graphics of recent hit iOS game Flappy Birds. Although that might be selling it short, as it’s clear from the mechanics shown off in the trailer above that this is much more than just a Flappy Birds clone.
From the guys sitting in the room next to the guys who made Angry Birds, comes RETRY – a game so hard, so addictive, so old school that you’ll think you’ve stepped into an 8-bit time machine and gone back to 1986. Totally rad!
The game is the first release from Rovio’s latest publishing arm “Rovio LVL 11,” which, according to Gamasutra, will exist for Rovio’s new titles that don’t quite fit in with the Angry Birds world. That means you shouldn’t expect to see a ton of cross-promotions with Retry and Angry Birds or any of the other Rovio’s titles.
Retry is already available in the App Store for both iPhone and iPad, but it’s currently only available in Canada, Finland, and Poland. We’d expect to see the title arrive in the US and globally in the near future.
After a couple of teases that a new Angry Birds title was incoming, Rovio today announced that a new game called “Angry Birds Stella” is coming soon. The game features a female lead character unlike the majority of Rovio’s other games, but there aren’t many details about how else it might differ from other Angry Birds titles.
Angry Birds Stella will open a door to a part of the Angry Birds universe you’ve never seen before! There will be plenty of fun and adventure, but the bunch of passionate pals will also have to deal with some serious issues in order to protect their friendship and the environment they live in. Luckily, Stella and her friends are good at finding creative solutions!
No word on an official release date, but Rovio says the game will ship sometime in the fall.
Yesterday we reported on new leaked docs from Edward Snowden reported by The New York Times and others that detailed secret NSA and GCHQ programs used to siphon data from popular smartphone apps on both iOS and Android. While Apple and Google have yet to respond to the reports, today one of the main developers singled out in the claims has. Rovio, maker of the popular Angry Birds game that was mentioned several times in the reports, today posted a response on its website.
The developer confirms that it in no way works with NSA, GCHQ or any other government organization to provide data about users, but it does point to third-party advertising networks as a possibility of the leaks:
The alleged surveillance may be conducted through third party advertising networks used by millions of commercial web sites and mobile applications across all industries. If advertising networks are indeed targeted, it would appear that no internet-enabled device that visits ad-enabled web sites or uses ad-enabled applications is immune to such surveillance. Rovio does not allow any third party network to use or hand over personal end-user data from Rovio’s apps.
Referring to the third-party advertising networks, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said the company would have to “re-evaluate working with these networks if they are being used for spying purposes.”
Angry Birds wasn’t the only app specifically mentioned in the leaked docs, however. The reports claim the NSA program is capable of intercepting information ranging from location, age, and sex of users to address books, buddy lists, phone logs, geographic data and more from various mobile apps and third-party ad networks. Twitter, Google Maps, Facebook and others were also specifically mentioned in yesterday’s reports.
In a refreshing departure from its iconic flick-and-throw style animated gameplay, Rovio is out with a brand new Mario Kart-like game depicting the ongoing battle between the winged warriors and pesky pigs with Angry Birds GO!
Angry Birds GO! delivers ‘breakneck speed’ downhill racing on Piggy Island in the first three-dimensional version of the series for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
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If you’ve ever been frustrated by having to recomplete levels in Angry Birds or The Croods when you download the game to a new device, Rovio has you covered.
After a limited trial back in May, Rovio has now announced that its account-synchronisation feature is being rolled-out globally across both iOS and Android devices. When you download a game to a new device, you just login with your Rovio account to continue right where you left off.
The feature is currently limited to the original Angry Birds and The Croods, but Rovio will be adding all its games over time.
Via Engadget
