Angry Birds land on Facebook

The Facebook app of Angry Birds, one of the world's most popular computer games, was launched globally yesterday in a bid by its makers to win over game lovers among users of the social-networking service - including its many Thai users.

The local launch was the result of cooperation between Pacific Licensing Studio and MCN Asia (Thailand).

MCN Asia (Thailand) managing director Montri Verayangkura said that with the Facebook version of Angry Birds, the game's makers hoped to have a billion people playing it worldwide in the next couple of months.

Currently more than 600 million people play Angry Birds on smart phones and other mobile devices around the world. Thailand has 13.7 million Facebook users, and the company targets all of them as potential Angry Birds devotees.

In Thailand, there have been more than 18 million downloads, both free and paid for, of Angry Birds in three versions - Classic, Season and Rio - across the Android, iOS, Blackberry and Symbian platforms. Globally, players rack up about 9 million minutes of playing time per day and generate more than 75 million monthly advertising impressions.

MCN Asia (Thailand) is a mobile advertising firm whose core business is mobile search systems. The company is the official digital marketing agency of Rovio, the Finnish creator of Angry Birds, in Southeast Asia and Japan.

"Our main revenue comes from advertising accompanying the Angry Birds game across digital platforms, both applications on smart phones and tablets and the Facebook version on personal computers and any smart device. Revenue also comes from online purchases, where players buy items [known as power-ups] while playing Angry Birds to increase their powers," Montri said.

To play the Angry Birds Facebook version for free, log on to Facebook.AngryBirds.com. People can play alone or with their Facebook friends. This version comes with special features including social components, power-ups and Facebook-exclusive levels.

Montri said the company was working with a local mobile operator to launch a major Angry Birds project in Thailand, but could not disclose details. To promote the Angry Birds Facebook version in Thailand, the company and its partners will invite fans of the game nationwide to compete in the Angry Birds Facebook Thailand Challenge at Commart Thailand 2012.