Successful pivot of Angry Birds 2
Recently, my fellow colleagues, PMs at Nordeus, had a chance to visit RovioCon. Beside many interesting topics covered there, one particularly got my attention. It was a story about Angry Birds 2.

But let’s start with the beginnings. Angry Birds 2 was soft-launched in Canada on March 5, 2015, as Angry Birds Under Pigstruction, released for iOS and Android worldwide on July 30, 2015, and the name was changed to Angry Birds 2. Below you can check how it looked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4jzOn_SYTU
As a sequel to legendary Angry Birds from the first screen it was obvious that Rovio put a lot of love into making it. They made it free to play (original Angry Birds was a paid game), improved levels / puzzle design (actually made level generator) and made highly polished game. I remember myself being amazed when I tried it for the first time. Everything looked awesome.
Except the critics (and the results).
It seemed that critics weren’t amazed like me. Nobody liked ‘lives’ mechanics and that’s the main reason why it received bad critics.
Reception
The game has received mixed reviews. Pocket Gamer gave the game a 7/10, feeling that the gameplay was a step forward in puzzle design and the graphics were gorgeous; however, it did not like the energy system that, after failing to complete a few levels, either makes the player stop playing or use gems to continue playing; overall the website thought the game was Rovio at its best. IGN awarded it a score of 6.7 out of 10, saying “Ever-shifting levels and limited lives take a lot of the fun out of smashing pigs with birds in Angry Birds 2.”
After gaining initial downloads boost from full launch promotion, cross-promotion and featuring, it seemed that AB2 didn’t manage to get traction till the end of 2015.

The pivot
The results were not satisfying. Retention wasn’t the best in the class and monetization seemed to follow typical casual game trends. They took the retention from core games and monetization from casual. Bad combination.
AB2 team knew that they are not going to keep up with the industry like that. And they made a decision. They wanted to pivot closer to core users.
So the 1st big update came around New Year 2016. They’ve added PvP Arena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODa28nsJHkc
They also added possibility to upgrade your birds (levels).
Further on, next updates continued in the same direction. They were adding new card levels, hats to improve bird’s stats, slingshot level-ups, daily challenges (win streak), tower of fortune feature… In general, adding depth and complexity in order to satisfy core players more.
You can find the major updates below and see how the grossing ranks changed during the game’s lifetime.

Pretty AMAZING.
And from the game going down they turned it around and got into record high top50 grossing which they continue to keep in.

Analyzing it further, considering number on downloads charts, I have a strong belief that they managed to more than double their ARPDAU.
Here’s how the game looks today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4WM8tL4AE8
Conclusion
Turning around mobile game’s success while game is live is very possible. AB2 is a real (and great) example of highly successful pivot in terms of catering audience’s needs.
Great job Rovio.