Angry Birds (series)/Controversies

Being a famous and long-running franchise, Angry Birds is no stranger to controversy. This page contains a list of controversies relating to the series.

"Angry Birds rips off Crush the Castle" (2012)
Back in 2012 when Angry Birds was getting global and media attention, people started to realize that the gameplay was very similar to another mobile game that came out in April 2009 called "Crush the Castle", which was themed to a more medieval landscape with Kings and knights being in the Pig's perspective and cannonballs filling in for The Birds. There was a decent amount of backlash on Rovio for copying CTC, but on May 6, 2015, the creator of Crush The Castle, Joey Betz did a Reddit AMA about the game and when someone asked about how they felt about Angry Birds, the OP stated that he thought it was a rip off, but he was later flattered when Angry Birds took off. He states that  "When it started growing in popularity it's become kind of flattering really"  and "If that's true, then it's awfully flattering that they chose my game to  copy  . :P".

NSA and GCHQ using Angry Birds to spy on players (2014)
Around 2014, documents were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that said the NSA (National Security Agency) and its British counterpart the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) were spying through security-venerable apps like Angry Birds to monitor social media presence and what you do on your phone. Both agencies stated that they operate within all reverent laws and only peruse valid foreign intelligence targets. However, on January 29, 2014, allies of the Syrian Electronic Army hijacked angrybirds.com for a few minutes replacing the logo with the image below as a form of protest against the allegations.

Juli Adams vs. Hartz & Angry Birds (2014 - 2015)
On August 4 of 2014, a Seattle artist filed a lawsuit against Hartz for cheating her out of millions of dollars when the pet toy company, Hartz Mountain Corporation made a deal with Rovio Entertainment to bring their popular Angry Birds brand to their toyline. Juli Adams designed the "Angry Birds" line of cat toys in 2006 when showing her artwork at a festival in Montana in 2006 when a vacationing Hartz executive saw her work and asked if Adams would be interested in designing a line of pet toys for the company. She accepted and helped create the cat toy line. When Rovio partnered with with Hartz in 2009, Hartz stopped the manufacturing of the original Angry Birds line and went on to make both dog and cat toys of the brand we know of today. The lawsuit was filed in 2014 and trials began shortly. Hartz asked U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik to dismiss the case, arguing that under its contract with Adams, it owned the “Angry Birds” trademark and was free to use it, but Lasnik declined to do so. The case was settled on December 28, 2015, with the results of the case being confidential to this day, but what we know is that Juli's attorney, Tony Shapiro sad that "She is very happy with the results".

The Angry Birds films containing subtle politics (2016-present)
In May 2016, when The Angry Birds Movie was released to the public, people were questioning the movie's theming throughout the feature film. Issues covered in the first movie includes:


 * Red coming off as an unlikeable character being the catalyst of the controversy, including but not limited to:
 * When Red slapped Dr. Wingstein, many people took it as an anti Jew, since the doctor's last name on his diploma is a pun on the Jewish name of "Weinstein".
 * Red tells a bird with Dreadlocks "Have you ever heard of bird control?"
 * Red doesn't seem to like Hipsters (Apple Store, Jazz, Fedoras)
 * Red seems odd about a male bird taking care of an egg
 * Most of the movie has strong ties of the issues Germany that was facing with Islamic refugees during the start of the 2010s in Europe. There have been many conspiracies including:
 * like Bird Island from above looks like the European Union (EU) flag and the “Anger management lesson” represents the liberalism in Europe.
 * Red, Chuck and Bomb are the colors of the present day German Flag
 * The pigs are supposed to represent Islamic Refugees
 * The museum of happiness might seem like people wanting to change the history of people by letting them forget situations in history (like what Germany did during the cold war and present day)
 * Mighty Eagle is supposed to represent the United States (Used to be strong, but is now old and weak)
 * Judge Peckinpah trying to look tall by standing on another bird to force his power on other birds
 * The pigs are all of male gender
 * The Pigs use a lot of TNT throughout the film
 * The Mighty Eagle knows what's going on, but doesn't want to do anything about it
 * There is a "Coexist" bumper sticker on the car Terence gets the birds on
 * Bomb doesn't like "Pig in Airplanes"
 * Mighty Eagle's final speech
 * The new statue at the end credits Mighty Eagle more than Red

Sony most likely realized what people were thinking, so they took creative control away from Rovio and revamped their scripts for The Angry Birds Movie 2 and surcumvent the events of the movie. However, an interview with Josh Gad confirmed that the sequel had some political undertones within the movie. Some of the commentary includes:


 * Bird Island and Piggy Island being a commentary for the war between Europe and the Middle East that ultimately doesn't have to so with anything.
 * Red could be seen as an allegory of Gen X, trying to showcase how heroic he is, Silver could be seen as a Millennial/Gen Z, being smart with technology and planning. All of the Eagles being a metaphor for Baby Boomers and only think about themselves, even if they cause problems around others.
 * The main antagonists being a direct correlation to evironemntal problems, mainly Global Warming.
 * Red giving the younger generation the credit they deserve.

Besides that, there were a lot of controversies within the fandom that is still being talked about to this very day.


 * The catalyst being Silver's redesign in the film, which didn't look anything like her debut appearance in the franchise. This led to some of the fans calling her "Rachel" to avoid any confusion between the two versions of Silver.
 * Acoording to a tweet by John Cohen, he described Jay with she/her pronouns as apposed to the he/him pronouns that Jay had in the games.

Rovio vs. "Angry Birdz" (2019)
On June 20, 2019, Rovio filed a lawsuit which accuses Angry Birdz Nashville Hot Chicken located in California of trademark dilution both with its name and its logo, which appears very similar to the logo for Angry Birds the mobile game. Rovio alleges that the restaurants’ infringement will impair the distinctiveness of Rovio's Angry Birds marks, which caused Rovio to issue a cease-and-desist to Mkhitaryan (the owner of the restaurant) and Angry Birdz. At that time, Rovio sought a prohibition against the hot chicken restaurant from using the name or logo in the future, as well as unspecified damages. The business is believed to be rebranded to "Angry Chickz".

#BringBack2012 (2019 - 2021)
In August 2019, Rovio removed most of their remaining games released from 2009 to 2014 due to "testing purposes", but later announced it was because they didn't have the resources needed to keep those games running older game engines up to the standards of the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Many fans disagreed with this situation. YouTuber Maximus Overdrive started the hashtag "#BringBack2012" back in September 2018 to protest many of Rovio's other decisions, but after this incident, the hashtag spread like storm. Many fans during late 2019 and 2020 started to spread it around on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But this had many consequences, like the hatred and toxicity growing even faster for Rovio. In 2020, Maximus decided to leave the AB community because of this, while the hate and flame wars continued throughout the year. On June 22, 2021, however, Rovio made an official statement that some of the classic games would be remade and return to stores, such as Angry Birds Classic, Seasons and possibly more. After hearing this, many of the fans instead starting using #ThankYouRovio for the exciting news and the hashtag has died down in usage lately. On November 23, 2021, Rovio officially announced for the re-release of Angry Birds Classic (using the Unity game engine) to be in early 2022 and encouraged fans to reuse the hashtag to ask questions about the initiative and what the company will do with the other older games in the future. The updated version of the original game, officially titled Rovio Classics: Angry Birds, was released on March 31, 2022.

Rovio & Angry Birds vs. Hector Balderas (NM) (2021)
On August 25, 2021, the New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas announced a federal lawsuit against Rovio Entertainment due to the company allegedly selling information of minors (people under 13) to 3rd party advertising companies. It is said that the personal information collected includes data like device names, online activity history, and more and that Rovio tried to turn a blind eye against the issue, while marketing merchandise to young kids, like playsets and lunchboxes. Currently since this is ongoing, the judge hasn't filed a court date, but the court filings are public. On August 27, the CEO of Rovio Alexandre Normand responded to a DM question about the lawsuit on Twitter that states that Hector hasn't contacted Rovio any time before filing the lawsuit and that they have not acquired the lawsuit yet. They also denied knowingly collecting data from minors. The first company response to the situation was in October of that year through the Q3 investors report that confirmed that they had not been served the lawsuit and mention that the general's claims lack merit and overlooks the investments the company put in to make safer playing environments in their games.

[Update April 2022: Rovio in their newest Q1 2022 investors report have confirmed that they have initiated discussions with the attorney general to "explore options for resolving the complaint"]

Peter Vesterbacka Crypto Scandal (2021)
On December 6, 2021, it was announced that the former-CMO and co-founder of Rovio Peter Vesterbacka was attending a grand opening event for an unheard-of Blockchain project called "Gem Uni" or "INO GENI" created around late October 2021 that has features of tokens and NFT's, which are widely known to unnecessarily use up large amounts of electricity from coal and nuclear power plants, which in return increases global warming tempatures that continues to harm our environment and natural ecosystem. Many users on Twitter found out about this and were disappointed in the co-founder's decisions. Peter has not made a public announcement on his Twitter currently, but has made posts about crypto on the same day as the blog post.

Website DDoS (2022)
On February 28th, 2022, Rovio posted on their official blog that they stand with the Ukrainian people and government amidst the Russian Invasion. Five days later on March 5th, the angrybirds.com website went offline with a 503 error code around 4-5pm EST. Luckily the site went back online around 6am EST the next morning. However this did not last forever and on the next day, the website went down yet again around the mid-day. The causes are unknown as of now, but it's speculated to be a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack from pro-Vladimir Putin hacking groups. It is important to note that only the Angry Birds website was targeted and not the Rovio domain. The website later came back online at 1pm EST the same day and has been running since then.

Rovio removing games from Russia and Belarus (2022)
On March 9, 2022, Rovio posted on their official Twitter that all of their games are being removed from Google Play Stores and Apple Stores from both Russia and Belarus, as a response to Russia invading Ukraine. They also said that the money that they use for advertisements in the games will be donated to UNICEF.

"Crush The Castle"

 * https://www.quora.com/Is-Angry-Birds-a-rip-off-of-Crush-the-Castle
 * https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1iu1ih/i_am_joey_betz_the_creator_of_the_games_crush_the/cb80zg6/

"NSA + GCHQ"

 * https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data
 * https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/nsa-spied-through-angry-birds-other-apps-report-flna2d12006530
 * https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/28/angry-birds-rovio-respond-nsa-spying-revelations
 * https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-25949341
 * https://hothardware.com/news/rovio-angry-birds-website-hacked-and-defaced-with-spying-birds-antinsa-make-over

"Juli Adams vs. Hartz & Angry Birds"

 * https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-artists-angry-birds-lawsuit-goes-forward-2014dec16-story.html
 * https://www.duetsblog.com/2014/08/articles/trademarks/playing-games-over-angry-birds/
 * https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/06/settlement-reached-in-seattle-artists-angry-birds-lawsuit.html

"Angry Birds Movie Political Messages"

 * https://www.quora.com/Is-the-new-%E2%80%9CAngry-Birds%E2%80%9D-movie-a-veiled-criticism-of-mass-immigration
 * https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/4jtcwd/is_there_some_controversy_with_the_angry_birds/
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcIxf1Xb78I

"Angry Birdz"

 * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-06-26-rovio-sues-california-chicken-restaurant-over-angry-birds-trademark
 * http://patentarcade.com/2020/03/angry-birds-sues-chicken-restaurant-over-trademark-dispute.html
 * https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/rovio-files-trademark-lawsuit-against-hot-chicken-restaurant-angry-birdz-
 * https://amp.tmz.com/2019/06/22/angry-birds-sues-la-restaurant-angry-birdz-stealing-famous-name/
 * https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-rovio-entertainment-ltd-v-mary-mkhitaryan-et-al-143785

"#bringback2012"

 * https://support.rovio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042909613-I-can-t-find-Angry-Birds-Classic-in-my-app-store-anymore-what-s-up-with-that-
 * https://www.rovio.com/articles/a-letter-to-our-fans/
 * https://www.ign.com/articles/the-original-angry-birds-games-are-returning-after-being-removed-from-sale
 * https://www.rovio.com/articles/bringing-back-2012-angry-birds-sets-a-flightpath-for-a-re-release/

"Hector Balderas (NM)"

 * https://ladailypost.com/new-mexico-ag-balderas-announces-lawsuit-against-developer-of-popular-game-angry-birds-for-illegally-collecting-child-data/
 * https://cbs4local.com/news/local/new-mexico-attorney-general-files-lawsuit-against-angry-birds-developer
 * https://www.krqe.com/news/politics-government/state-files-lawsuit-against-angry-birds-developer-over-data-collection/
 * https://twitter.com/AB__Network/status/1431326530089668614/photo/1
 * https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-balderas-v-rovio-entertainment-corporation-998505

"Peter Vesterbacka Crypto Scandal"

 * https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gemuni-launches-a-decentralized-universe-of-casual-games-advised-by-angry-birds-co-creator-301438933.html
 * https://twitter.com/angry_facts/status/1468408163066126337
 * https://twitter.com/pvesterbacka/status/1467977980265836548
 * https://twitter.com/gemuniofficial/status/1467822240796315652?s=20

"Angry Birds Website DDoS"

 * https://www.rovio.com/articles/we-stand-with-ukraine/
 * https://twitter.com/AB_Wiki/status/1500289478648385543
 * https://twitter.com/AB_Wiki/status/1500524897956777984
 * https://twitter.com/AB_Wiki/status/1500535253278109702
 * https://twitter.com/AB_Wiki/status/1500545086609891333
 * https://twitter.com/AB_Wiki/status/1503739851694346246

"Rovio removing all of their games from Russia and Belarus"

 * https://twitter.com/Rovio/status/1501570218295967752
 * https://twitter.com/Rovio/status/1501570219914973188
 * https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1501953664918958082