First results of Bad Piggies

Rovio until recently was something of an idol for mobile developers, being a company that was able to not only earn money on one game, but also build an entire entertainment empire – with cartoons, coloring books, soft toys and gelatin candies.

But, as happens with all cinderellas, after twelve the carriage turns into a pumpkin, and the footmen in gilded liveries turn into gray rats. And even if the chimes haven’t struck midnight for Rovio yet, she already needs to look for a new sorceress who will enchant her shoes for another couple of years. 

App Store

Amazing Alex, released three months ago, turned out to be untenable in the role of a fairy with a magic wand. It is for this reason that Rovio did not postpone the release of the piggy puzzle Bad Piggies, which we wrote about just yesterday. Another thing is, it is not entirely clear how much this game will be more successful than its predecessor. Actually, this is what we decided to figure out, taking material from the PocketGamer portal as a source of inspiration.

Officially, Bad Piggies appeared in the App Store on September 27, starting from the 9th position in the American box office top. The next day she was already in charge of it. The HD version of the game debuted somewhat more successfully – from the 3rd position in the box office top of iPad apps. And, yes, on the 28th, she was already at the top, too. Importantly, even four days after the release, the positions of the game in these tops do not run down. 

It would seem that everything is fine, but judging by the available data, Bad Piggies on iOS reached the first place only in the box office tops of 17 countries, including Canada, Poland and Finland, native to the project.

At the same time, the game did not reach the top of the charts in any of the markets of the big five European (France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK). The same is true of Bad Piggies HD. Of course, the game was in the top ten in all these countries, but the fact that she failed to lead any of them is a stone in the developers’ garden.

If we compare the results of Bad Piggies with Angry Birds Space, the picture seems even more dramatic, since the latter topped the tops in 104 countries, including the USA, China and the European top five. 

On the other hand, when compared with the previous Rovio release – the Amazing Alex logic puzzle – everything is not so bad. Recall that for Alex, the 8th position in the American box office top was a kind of maximum. However, in the paid gaming top, it was in first place in 95 countries. 

Google Play

As for Google Play, it’s getting harder to count here. The fact is that Rovio releases all its projects on Android for free. She earns money on them with the help of advertising. Accordingly, it is almost impossible to judge her financial success on this platform.

But it is worth looking into the free tops, as the picture of “success”, in general, becomes clearer. Moreover, the picture is far from joyful: the game was included in the top ten of the best free apps only in the Finnish Google Play (in the Russian top, for example, the game is on the 36th position).

The number of Bad Piggies downloads in the Android store at the moment is between 500 thousand and 1 million. The number of downloads of the HD version of the game the number of downloads is from 100 thousand to 500 thousand.  

In general, despite the stellar name of Rovio, it is too early to talk about the unequivocal success of the project. They accept it with restraint, without enthusiasm, just as a good, hard-hit game for mobile platforms. And, as it seems to us, this is also not bad.