Rovio says classic Angry Birds was delisted due to impact on search results

Rovio has provided a few more details about the delisting of Angry Birds, saying the game could come back on Android if renaming it is successful on iOS.

Talking to Axios, Rovio’s head of Angry Birds strategy Ben Mattes said that the company delisted the game because it was making other Angry Birds titles more difficult to find in search results.

Mattes explained that players would reportedly look for Angry Birds titles on app stores, find the original Angry Birds as the top result but wouldn't want to spend $0.99 to buy it, and would end up not downloading anything.

Rovio previously tried to rename it Rovio Classics: AB instead of Rovio Classics: Angry Birds, but that didn't fix the issue. It also removed the name 'Angry Birds' from the title's metadata, hoping it would help other titles to rank higher in search results, but it also didn't work.

"We've spent the last, whatever it is, ten or 11 months trying to solve this problem," Mattes told Axios, adding that it's what ultimately led the company to think that there was "no choice but to do something a little bit more drastic" to cut down the negative impact on its portfolio.

Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was renamed Red's First Flight on iOS, with Mattes saying that the impact of this new name could mean that the game is either brought back to Android under the same name, or get removed from iOS as well if it doesn't fix the issue.

Rovio announced it was delisting Angry Birds at the end of February, due to "the game's impact on [its] wider games portfolio."

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