Rovio has expanded the popular Angry Birds Friends game beyond mobile and has officially launched the game on web browsers, making it easier than ever for players worldwide to jump in and enjoy the game.
Unlike one-time promotions, playing Angry Birds Friends on the web unlocks exclusive rewards and long-term value, ensuring browser-based players always have access to the best deals and in-game incentives.
It’s also a new opportunity to explore because there are no gatekeepers on the web, and Jeremy Widdowson, head of growth at the Game Evolution studio at Rovio, has noticed that. He said in an interview with GamesBeat that it took a relatively small team about a year make.
Angry Birds Friends on web browsers delivers an enhanced gameplay experience featuring higher refresh rates, lightning-fast performance, and optimized scaling for larger screens. On top of the technical upgrades, the web version serves as the premier hub for player value, as first-time web players can immediately claim a 750% Welcome Bundle, along with 400 bonus coins.
I played the game and before I knew it I had gone through about 15 levels in one sitting. It’s funny and the characters make a lot of noise. I was struck by the quality of the sound on my Chrome browser. It stuttered once in a while, but never crashed on me. Using a mouse, you get so much more control and accuracy on a PC. If you play it on mobile, it’s not as accurate and not as beautiful with the size of the screen.
You can play Angry Birds Friends on the web now here and watch the launch trailer here.
Angry Birds Friends combines classic Angry Birds puzzles with the thrill of head-to-head competition, where players can challenge friends and rivals around the world, climb leaderboards and prove their skills in fast, high-scoring matches.
In addition to the web browsers, Angry Birds Friends is available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
Origins
The game itself debuted in 2012 on the Facebook Canvas, back in the day when Facebook welcomed a lot of games. It was, oddly enough, designed originally for a bigger screen.
“Interestingly enough, we can still see a significant chunk of our players are on Facebook Canvas. It’s around 25% of our [daily active users],” Widdowson said. “In my mind, it’s clear that a bigger screen brings a better experience. We can also see for our tablet players, our iPad players, their attention and engagement is way higher than on smaller devices.”
So the data was there to motivate Rovio to give the web version a try.
One of the things in the past that held up progress on the web was that the browsers really weren’t up to handling complicated games. The memory available on PCs for the browsing experience was limited, and so it was hard to pull off 3D graphics.
The Angry Birds Friend has 2D graphics, a lot of high-quality sound, and physics-based gameplay. As browsers adopt 3D tech, the idea gathered momentum.
“The idea has been there for a while, and we probably started seriously approaching it about a year ago,” Widdowson said. “There have been improvements in browser technology.”
Better browser tech
Modern web games are getting better because browsers include tech that lets them function more like native apps. The trends include better GPU access, faster code execution, better asset streaming, and new APIs for input, audio, and networking. Add to that better processors and GPUs and you get high‑fidelity 3D games, smoother performance, and more complex gameplay than was possible in the Flash era.
The tech includes the ability to offload graphics work to the GPU. WebGL enables hardware‑accelerated 3D rendering, similar to OpenGL ES. Browsers can also rely on the GPU to draw WebGL and Canvas graphics, improving FPS and reducing stutter. And WebGPU offers a chance to bring performance closer to that of Vulkan/DirectX 12.
All of that allows games to render complex scenes, shaders, lighting, and physics at high frame rates.
Widdowson said that Angry Birds Friends is not the most high-fidelity game, but the physics needs to run smooth.
“What we’re essentially going for is that you go to the website and you start playing. That’s about it,” Widdowson said.
In this case, the developers were able to put the full game on the web version with HTML5. It’s not a port. If you sign in, you can sync your progress with the account for the game that you have on your phone. So you can continue playing where you left off.
“We built it fully for web to be native. What we’re going for is you can play this game pretty much anywhere. That’s one of the aspirations. To make it more accessible,” Widdowson said.
The game is available on a Chrome web browser (perhaps a third of the market) now, and Safari is next on the list, as is the Opera browser and Edge.
“We’re taking a measured approach. We’re not trying to promise the world,” said Widdowson.
Making more money
Right now, the game monetizes through in-app purchases and ads. But there are no ads at the moment.
“It’s very important to set the right tone and then make progress,” he said.
The game has tons of levels, as you have to play about 30 levels to get to the core of the game itself. And there are regular tournaments.
The web is appealing for business reasons too. Apple introduced its privacy frameworks that reined in what mobile game companies could do in finding out more about their players. Facebook is deprecating its Canvas product in favor of Facebook Instant.
“Moving it our own ecosystem, having our own browser version, essentially safeguards and future proofs this product. We get ownership of our game. We get ownership of our players. We get ownership on how we develop and publish the game,” said Widdowson. “We will keep our games on mobile, but this gives us another environment for our players to play.”
And thanks to court rulings in the Epic vs. Apple and Epic vs. Google antitrust lawsuits, Rovio also gets to bypass paying a 30% fee to one of the platform owners. Rovio is marketing it as a standalone product now, not as something that they would promote from the app stores to steer players to their own web site.
As far as direct-to-consumer goes, Rovio is looking at that, but the first task is to provide a lot of value to consumers and amass a big audience on the web.
Of course, the web brings with it challenges, like the difficulty of discovery. It’s hard to stand out, and user acquisition can be very expensive. But there are ways to experiment with driver users to the game.
Later this month, Rovio will start a web user acquisition campaign. If the game gathers a lot of customers on the web, more games could follow, Widdowson said. Browser games are something like a $7.8 billion market.
“I’m not getting ahead of myself, but it’s a really exciting project,” Widdowson said.