Are holiday updates the key to sustaining mobile game popularity?

Almost two years after Rovio Mobile exploded into the collective consciousness with Angry Birds, consumer enthusiasm for the mobile game shows no signs of slowing down. This week Rovio chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka announced that Angry Birds has crossed the 500 million download threshold, calling it the fastest growing and most downloaded game ever. Just two weeks ago, Rovio's North American general manager Andrew Stalbow announced Angry Birds downloads totaled 400 million across all platforms, meaning the title generates 50 million new installs every seven days. At that time, Stalbow added that more than 130 million consumers play Angry Birds each month--30 million access the app each day, translating to 300 million minutes of daily game play.

How is this possible? We live in an age where the average pop culture phenomenon burns out faster than a smartphone battery, so how can it be that Angry Birds is more successful than ever before? After all, a recent developer survey indicates that half of all mobile games distributed via Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store yield revenues under $3,000 throughout their lifecycle--at the opposite end of the spectrum, Rovio has now sold millions of plush toys and t-shirts. If developers could reproduce the Angry Birds formula, they would--SolverLabs' Cut the Birds, a shameless rip-off of both Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja that inexplicably topped the App Store's Free Apps chart, appropriates basic concepts wholesale. But Rovio's combination of simple gameplay mechanics, colorful character design and unadulterated wit defies duplication.

And yet there are clear lessons game developers can draw from the Angry Birds juggernaut. Rovio has kept the title fresh and engaging by regularly introducing new levels, in-game achievements and in-app purchase options. The company has also rolled out Angry Birds Seasons, a spinoff game touting characters and settings inspired by holidays like Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day and even China's Moon Festival. New data issued by app discovery solutions provider Chomp states that the recent Halloween-themed Angry Birds Seasons update was one of the most downloaded apps during the month of October as consumers aggressively sought out Halloween apps, a trend that peaked on Oct. 31. But Angry Birds Seasons wasn't the only holiday app to benefit: Chomp reports that special Halloween versions of franchises like Coin Dozer and Bubble Blast also enjoyed significant download action last month, alongside the likes of Pumpkins vs. Monsters and Halloween Live Wallpaper.  

It seems doubtful that a startup could build a sustainable mobile franchise solely out of holiday themes and seasonal tie-ins, but it's a proven way of expanding and re-charging a title over time. It's also an excellent method for driving discovery. According to Chomp, 83 percent of Android app searches are based on app function (e.g., "adventure games" or "photography") and only 17 percent of searches include the actual app name--on iOS, function-based queries increase to 84 percent. If a consumer types "Halloween games" into the App Store search utility, the first batch of results includes--you guessed it--Angry Birds Seasons. This illustrates that Rovio Mobile isn't raking in the cash simply because Angry Birds is a great mobile game--it's also because the company knows how to play the app store search and discovery game better than anyone else.--Jason