Rovio introduces ‘Bad Piggy Bank’ in-app mobile payment solution for Android

By on Dec 11, 2010 at 10:00 AM
Software December 11, 2010

At a streamed press conference Friday, Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka announced the creation of a new mobile payment system dubbed Bad Piggy Bank. Rovio is the development company responsible for the creation of the wildly popular mobile game, Angry Birds. Bad Piggy Bank is an in-app payment solution for the Android platform that will allow users to purchase application upgrades, or unlock an ad-free version of the app, without the need of a third-party, credit-card based service. The service partners with local wireless providers and in-app purchases are billed directly to the users wireless account. Mr. Vesterbacka said his company plans to make the new payment method available to all Android developers in the near future. Angry Birds has eclipsed the 50 million download mark, 10 million alone on the Android platform.

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  • Anonymous

    Just make sure you get the right version for your Android device, because even though Google denies any real “fragmentation,” Rovio is maintaining two versions of this app: a regular version, for “modern” Android phones (those purchased in the previous 90 days) and a lite version for less powerful phones (you know, all those suckers that fell for the original “Droid Does” ads, and devices that are more than 90 days old).

    • http://twitter.com/stalkbrandon Brandon V. Fletcher

      yea because every iOS device can run every feature. Glad I have Game Center on my iPhone 2G and 3G. (sarcasm)

      • Anonymous

        c’mon…u have a 4 year old phone…they’re trying to tell you to update..3Gs are damn near free now.

      • Anonymous

        That’s the whole point of fragmentation manufacturers, consmers, and carriers DEMAND IT. Please take economics 101, Motorolas non profit division did not make the backflip to give back to low income youth. Only whiny developers and idiot fanboys who buy high end devices anyway have a problem with budget smartphones. On android people on a budget can get a brand new never used phone for free. On iOs its either used or 2 years old. And my sis got a Sanyo Zio for free and it runs the same Angry Birds any other top tier phone does.

    • Norm

      You made some great points. That is one of the benefits of the DROID OS. You are able have many versions of the DROID OS and since it’s open source developers can develop several versions of the same app to accommodate them all. Developers love such an open system as it allows to them focus on things are important such as support for old versions of DROID OS.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Matthew-Williams/713122739 Matthew Williams

        ITS NOT CALLED DROID OS ITS ANDROID

      • http://www.facebook.com/peterf Peter Fares

        He’s a troll that’s exactly the response he wants.

      • Norm

        DROID OS is open source and I will call it whatever I want.

      • Anonymous

        Yea exactly that’s why I just got an iPhone, Steve Jobs thought it out just for me. He knew exactly how much battery I needed, he knew that I wouldn’t want a keyboard on my phone.. And anyway if I ever need those things on accident I can spend another 100+ bucks on a huge battery case and a slide out bluetooth keyboard case. Basically if you want options on your phone your using it wrong.

    • Anonymous

      I’m not sure I get your logic. Of course your statement started off with typical “talking points” but you can’t blame the OS or even use the terms “fragmented” Look at this in the way desktops, laptops and netbooks. All run a Windows 7 operating systems but each one has its target audience and level of capabilities. Dell uses XPS and HP uses Envy to market their high-end machines. The person getting in on the $299 Celeron desktop can’t expect to run the same kind of applications and expect the same performance as a $899 desktop.

      Verizon Wireless uses the trademark “Droid” to make their higher-end and capable Android phones stand out and there are other phones that are free or start at $49.99 that you can’t expect to perform the same. There are different needs, markets and budgets for everyone, but at least there is CHOICE.

      I come in to this as the person who handles the Government agency’s wireless accounts that I work for and makes all the phone based decisions. We get 1yr contracts with no ETF and 10 month upgrades so I have carried about every phone out there. Currently carrying a Droid X but still prefer the Touch Pro2 (but wished it had the HD2′s processor)

      • D Town Tony

        Government agency’s wireless accounts? Well, that explains it then…..mystery solved. If you guys would have been using BlackBerrys instead of Android based phones the information would have been more secure and Wikigate would never have happened. Damn you Android and your lack of FIPS Security Certification!

      • Anonymous

        How incredibly. . .shoddy. First, it worries me that you handle “the Government agency’s wireless accounts that [you]work for and [make] all the phone based decisions,” yet you can’t even manage 300 words without numerous sentence fragments, punctuation errors and bizarre capitalization.

        Second, this is a tech blog, not the New Yorker. If you’re looking for a well-reasoned argument in the comments, you’ve come to the wrong place since most of the commenters here live with their parents and eat coco puffs for dinner. In other words, they’re not exactly geniuses (except for the obvious, of course). As for me, I come here to relax and tick some people off. Thanks for helping me meet today’s quota.

    • http://twitter.com/Erico132 Erico Azevedo

      Doesn’t really matter since they are both free and if it wasn’t free you can always refund it ;)

    • ISilent

      Doesn’t really matter since they are both free and if it wasn’t free you can always refund it ;)

      • ISilent

        Stupid thing ¬¬ didn’t think it got my first post ¬¬
        Also You can get a laptop for £200 and a laptop for £1000, unless you stupid your going to know that 1 of them cant play a game like crysis..

    • Scottyb37743

      Nice try, Ding-Ding. As the owner of an original Moto Droid (you know, one of the “Droid Does” models) I can happily say I have the full version and it plays fine. It has to do with hardware specs and if you bought a higher-end device, it plays fine.

  • Anonymous

    50m total, 10m for Android, few weeks back they said that 10m for Ios, so that’s 30m for Nokia (Symbian and Maemo)? Or am I missing something here?

    • Sboegemann

      WebOS for one……..

      • Anonymous

        A couple of million WebOS devices sold hardly account for 30m Angry Birds downloads. Based on the numbers published on BGR it looks like Symbian downloads are about 50-60% of the total AB downloads. Funny that doesn’t merit an entry on here.

  • http://twitter.com/goodman Goodman Holiday

    I don’t like the idea of my app purchases becoming part of my phone bill. I buy a lot of apps and comics and songs for a buck here and two bucks there, but I’d have a heart attack if I saw how much I was spending in total each month!

    • mike

      X2, I think having the bill go on your cellphone bill is a HORRIBLE idea. I like being able to pay for it right then when I do I’ll have the cash for my purchases.

      Personally though Angry Birds just suck IMO on anything but an iPhone 4, (yes I own a HTC G2) so I’m no Apply fanboy.

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