In the early 2000s, arguably the smartest things about smartphones were the contact books and calendars. Peter Vesterbacka, then a business development executive at Hewlett-Packard in Finland, had a different vision. He saw the smartphone not just as a perfunctory work accessory but also as a powerful gaming platform. In 2003, wanting to expand HP’s mobile gaming offerings beyond standards like solitaire, he began a contest for the best multiplayer smartphone game; three Finnish college students won with a whack-a-mole-like game. The students went on to found a mobile gaming company, Rovio, near Helsinki.
Today Vesterbacka is Rovio’s chief marketing officer and the driving force behind the company’s blockbuster mobile game Angry Birds, in which players use a touch screen to slingshot vengeful birds at towers to destroy the egg-stealing pigs who live inside. The game’s brilliant graphics, coupled with its childlike simplicity, have helped make it the most popular ...
