Podcast: How Angry Birds reached the stars

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By now many of you in the mobile games industry will be familiar with the Rovio and Angry Birds story.

It became a global phenomenon and helped establish mobile as a top gaming platform in the premium era. It would go on to spark spinoffs through partnerships with the animated movie Rio, blockbuster film franchise Star Wars and even NASA.

Later it would go on to spawn a trilogy of movies – the third one lands in cinemas this year – and while perhaps not at the height of its powers these days, it’s still a familiar IP around the world.

The Slingshot Formula

For the latest episode of the PocketGamer.biz Podcast, we got the chance to go deeper into the Angry Birds story, those big spin-offs and get lessons from the key marketing beats with three experts on the matter.

Joining the show is Pascal Clarysse, a long-time industry marketing expert who is now the CEO and founder of Big Karma. He has literally written the book on Angry Birds, recently releasing The Slingshot Formula: How Angry Birds Launched Their Way from Indie Game to Global Icon. The book delves into the business tactics, marketing strategies and stunts that helped build Angry Birds’ popularity in the eyes of the public.

We’ve also got two of the leaders who were right there at Rovio during Angry Birds’ rise. We have Naz Amarchi-Cuevas, who was the EVP of global consumer products licensing at Rovio. She’s since worked at SYBO, Scopely and now has her own business, 212 Strategy Consultancy.

We also have Marja Konttinen, former marketing director at Rovio, who later worked at Lightneer, Flaregames, Hatch, Lockwood and others. She now has her own consulting agency called Transparent Eyeball.

The podcast covers:

• Why now was the right time to release a book on the rise of Angry Birds.
• Angry Birds Rio – The impact the game had on the movie and why Rovio pushed for a Rio film sequel.
• Angry Birds Space – We chatted about the NASA partnership, the Space Needle stunt and why there just happened to be an Angry Bird already on the International Space Station…
• Angry Birds Star Wars – We spoke about working with Lucasfilm, tight deadlines and how Rovio broke the rules on royalties.
• We also cover lessons learned, product licensing, marketing tips, and more!

Learn more at PGC London

Want to learn more? Clarysse is hosting a panel about the rise of Angry Birds at Pocket Gamer Connects London 2026 on January 20th. 

He’ll be joined by ex-Rovio employees Wild Sloths CEO Matthew Wilson, formerly director of business development at Rovio; Sybo Games CMO Philip Hickey, previously VP of marketing at the Angry Birds studio; and KTC Creative Agency executive advisor Kai Torstila, who worked as marketing director at the Finnish outfit.

Get your ticket here.