Angry Birds Announce "Bad Piggy Bank" Functionality For Android
Today there's been a live stream going on over at Elisa, the creators, Rovio, giving out some news points to the world along the lines of payment for the Android version of the game. Their main announcement was about "Bad Piggy Bank," an in-game payment option for Android users that allows them to remove the ads on their otherwise free Angry Birds screens. This payment function will also allow Android users to purchase the "Mighty Eagle" update for the game which they say is on the way!
The interesting part about their newly announced "Bad Piggy Bank" function is the way it processes payment. Instead of requiring a credit card of some kind, it simply adds on to your monthly mobile phone bill. This functionality, Rovio says, will be offered to all other Android developers soon, making it extremely easy (or so it sounds) to process payments for all. Oh my goodness that seems like a rather dangerous thing for me- I'll be spending all day long if I can't see it. Shucks. Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka noted that they were "not picking on Android particularly, but I think that the payment method up to now has been less than perfect."
Bad Piggy Bank will launch in Finland first with operator Elisa, (same place that's running the live stream,) and will hopefully be global next year "since it requires deals to be struck with local telcos." Speaking with TechCrunch after the event, Vesterbacka added that Angry Birds was now at about 50 million downloads, over 10 million of those downloads being on Android. He noted also that Angry Birds would be coming to Mac and PC computers soon as well as gaming consoles, with "some new things" happening online in 2011.
Also at this live event were "The Ran," an indy band who've written a song for the Angry Birds series. Their song had a lot to do with birds flying through the sky via slingshots, hitting pigs, you know, the usual. Feel free to hang on over back to Elisa to see the entire event on video start to finish if you wish. Watch out for big red hoodies with bird faces on them.
[Via AndroidCommunity]