This last month has been pretty good for handheld/mobile games, or whatever you want to cal them. Earlier in the month we said how Chillingo had made mobile gaming history with their smash hit “Cut the Rope” winning the award for “Best Handheld Game” category. This came as a shock to many on the night, but it sends out a clear message that handheld/mobile games are becoming a lot more popular now as to what they were say 18 months ago.
Also this month, there was an Angry Birds Championship held in Finland. Yes you heard it right, an Angry Birds Championship. It took place only in Finland and it was held in conjunction with Finnish mobile phone giants Nokia who provided a Nokia N8 to the winner of the whole competition. Aside from sponsoring the tournament and supplying a prize for the winner, Nokia haven’t really had much else to say, or do for that matter other than saying on their blog that the event may be going international in the very near future. So if you fancy your hand at an being an Angry Birds champ then get on down to your local event!
Anyhow back to the event in Finland, the very first winner of the very first Angry Birds Championships was 19 year old Jonas Koivula. He entered the competition like some 2600 other people who entered regional qualifiers and eventually it got whittled down to 32 people who had reached the final and had to play each other in head-to-head matches and try and get the most points on the level and who ever got the most points naturally progressed, and Jonas came out on top in the end.
So if these championships do go global then you may see more and more games like Chillingo’s “Cut the Rope” winning awards or Rovio’s “Angry Birds” growing even more than it has done now with the likes of the new Angry Birds already out on the iPhone; Angry Birds Rio. Or who knows, perhaps we could see a Rovio/Chillingo collaboration and some new wolrd conquering game being released. But until that day we’ll have to put up with what we have now. Such a hard life eh?
