How does
Rovio use ‘Angry Birds’ to employ Transmedia narratives across platforms?
Angry Birds is a puzzle based game franchise developed by the Finnish video game
company Rovio. The series has long been praised for its success by using an
amalgamation of addictive gameplay, low development costs and its quirky design
style to develop a sustainable business venture. The booming popularity of the
series has since harbored the production of new versions of Angry Birds across platforms, such as
film, TV, gaming consoles and also the merchandise industry. Having influenced
audiences on a global scale, Angry Birds
has become one of the largest mobile app
success the globe has witnessed so far. This essay will explore the ways in
which Angry Birds has expanded from
merely a single app based game to a global-spanning cross-platform franchise. The
concepts of transmedia narratives – the systematic dispersion of media across
multiple channels, as understood by Jenkins (2007) and narratology – examining
the perceptions of space and time within narrative forms – will also be
investigated. This will become an attempt to reveal how Angry Birds continues to expand its convoluted fictional world into
different industries and remain part of peoples lives in both the real and
digital world.
The basic narrative
structure for the series is centered around the conflict between birds and
pigs. The eggs of the birds are stolen by the pigs, so the now ‘Angry Birds’ begin to hunt them down by
using a slingshot to catapult themselves
at the pigs who are located in and around different structures. The further
players get through each level, the more types of bird’s players get to use,
each of which have special abilities. The aesthetics of the game has a
consistent, unique design style, which is transferred across its several
platforms, from iOS to Android, and books to films. This, along with the
narrative structure, provides a catalyst for Transmedia storytelling, which “represents a process where integral elements of a
fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the
purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience”
(Jenkins, H. 2007). This raises the question of whether Angry Birds employs the use of transmedia narratives in order to
reach new markets and expand their ever-growing franchise, or whether the
impacts of audiences entirely have the full control of the success
of the company and brand. Perhaps the likes of technological determinism may
have an effect on societal issues expressed throughout gameplay, and thus entertainment
experiences, which could impact the way audiences may utilise and associate
themselves with a text. The
concept of cross media can be defined as “…communication or production where
two or more media platforms are involved in an integrated way.” (Erdal, 2011).
This, influenced by the rise of globalisation and technological advancements,
has vastly impacted the convergence of new media technologies in the modern
digital age.