Who owns ‘Angry Birds,’ and when was it first released?

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It isn’t too often that something monumental happens in the gaming universe, but when it does, there’s no doubt that whatever the news may be — it makes headlines all around the globe. On this day of days, it has been confirmed that Sega, the corporation behind the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, will be acquiring Finland-based developer Rovio Entertainment — the minds behind the Angry Birds franchise — for a settled sum of $775 million in a deal that’s set to close by the end of the year. That means we could be seeing Sonic the Hedgehog fighting beside our feathered friends in the upcoming sequels — who knows?

As of right now, the question of who owns Angry Birds isn’t necessarily a straightforward one. Sega will be acquiring the rights to Rovio — and Angry Birds by extension — therefore, Sega technically owns all Rovio assets, although that isn’t set in stone just yet, so for the time being, we’ll say that Rovio still owns Angry Birds until a final firm handshake between corporate bigwigs announces otherwise.

Prior to creating Angry Birds, Rovio Entertainment crafted many work-for-hire and independently released titles, namely the Bounce franchise, the Darkest Fear franchise, Paper Planes, Marine Sniper, SWAT Elite Troops, and more. To date, there are more than 30 titles in the Angry Birds series, including spin-off crossovers like Angry Birds Star Wars.

But when did Angry Birds grace the IOS and Android stores for the first time? Well, users have been performing the questionable task of catapulting an abundance of furious fowl into pig fortresses since 2009. The original Angry Birds saw players living out the feud between birds and pigs, which lasted for a considerable amount of time. The game was re-released under the