We already told you EA’s $20 million Chillingo purchase wasn’t a backdoor pickup of Angry Birds developer Rovio. What we didn’t know was that Rovio was planning to walk away from the popular social games publisher–or that it probably already had.
Speaking to Techcrunch, Rovio’s North American development head Peter Vesterbacka, aka ‘Might Eagle’, said the casual game maker’s been self-publishing for some time now.
“We only did the first iPad/iPhone integration with Chillingo and aside from that we’ve published everything ourselves,” Vesterbecka told the tech site, adding–it seems definitively–that Rovio “will not use Chillingo again.”
“You don’t need publishers,” said Vesterbecka, alluding to the fact that, subsequent to the Chillingo iPad/iPhone deal, Rovio has self-published Angry Birds on the Android and Nokia, as well as Angry Birds Halloween, which launches tonight at midnight.
Scan the Angry Birds Halloween iTunes page and you’ll see it listed as a Rovio Mobile Ltd. game, whereas Angry Birds is listed as ‘by Clickgamer‘, a division of Chillingo.
EA paid $20 million in cash for Chillingo, which–given what we now know, and that EA knew they weren’t gaining access to Rovio’s incredibly popular property–means they’re probably just interested in Chillingo’s experience picking winners. Stuff like Cut the Rope, Helsing’s Fire, Dracula’s Fire, and of course, Angry Birds.
If you want to keep up on the latest, Rovio’s using its official Twitter feed to interact with fan-followers. They’ve answered questions like “Will Angry Birds Halloween have updates or will it just stay the same?” (“There will be updates”), “Will you now self-publish the PlayStation Mini version of the game, too?” (“Not decided yet”), “[C]an we get a thanksgiving exclusive angry birds for android?” (“We will consider”), and “[A]ny chance of Angry Birds Halloween edition for Android?” (“Not this year”).
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