Angry Birds' 'astounding' popularity: By the numbers (The Week)

New York ? The punishingly addictive mobile game tops 500 million downloads. Just how much time has the world wasted slinging birds?

This week, Finnish gaming company Rovio Entertainment announced via an animated video press release?that its hit mobile game Angry Birds has been downloaded an "astounding" 500 million times since its 2009 debut. The implausibly addictive game lets players propel animated birds from a sling shot, all in a quest to destroy evil pigs who have stolen the birds' eggs. Here's a by-the-numbers look at the milestone:

23
Months it took for the game to reach the 500-million-download milestone. It was first released for Apple's iOS in December 2009.

266 billion
Number of levels of the game that have been played

400 billion
Number of birds that have been shot

44 billion
Number of stars collected. (Players win zero to three stars at the end of each level, depending on their performance.)

300 million
Number of minutes each day that Rovio estimates the game is played worldwide

1.825 billion
Number of hours per year that estimate equals

200,000
Number of years that the total amount of?Angry Birds game-play to date adds up to

79
Number of countries in which Angry Birds is the top downloaded game

$1 billion
Amount Rovio is estimated to be worth by Chief Marketing Officer Peter Vesterbacka

10 million
Number of Angry Birds toys sold worldwide, says Chloe Albanesius at PC World

1
Number of films based on Angry Birds currently in development, according to the U.K.'s Guardian. It's being eyed for a 2015 release.

1
Number of Angry Birds games based on a film. Angry Birds Rio, inspired by the animated movie Rio, was released in March 2011.

10 million
Number of times Angry Birds Rio was downloaded in its first 10 days of release, says Jeffrey Van Camp at Digital Trends

Sources: Box Office Mojo, Daily Tech, Digital Trends, Guardian, Mashable (2), PC World (2)

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