Espoo, Finland —December 11th 2014—Angry Birds celebrates its fifth BirdDay today, paying tribute to its fans with the release of an Angry Birds episode Play the Next Level.  With 30 new levels created entirely by fans, Play the Next Level is the result of a social media competition hosted by Rovio and its partners. This was one of the world’s largest user generated events with thousands of entries from every corner of the planet.

The new Angry Birds Play the Next Level episode would not have been possible without the support of Rovio’s friends and partners who have played a key role in Angry Birds’ five year story. The partners who called on their communities to take part in the social media competition were Angry Birds Nest, CERN, Google Play, LucasFilm, National Geographic, NHL, Pigineering, Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Twitter, UNICEF, WWF and collaborator NASA.

“When we saw the first concept image for Angry Birds back in December 2009, there was a strong feeling that this was an idea that would take flight – but we couldn’t have dreamt of its scale”, said Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio. “In the past five years Angry Birds has grown into one of the most recognized brands in the world, and Rovio has grown into a global entertainment company producing games, books, animations, theme parks and many other products including a feature film due out in July of 2016.”

In its home nest in Finland, Rovio is hosting a party for over 2000 local kids and gifting every baby born in Finland on December 11 with a special edition baby Flock outfit.

But the day would not be complete without a match between the birds and the pigs. As part of the BirdDay celebrations, Rovio is hosting a Finnish hockey league match today between Espoo Blues and Porin Ässät. Please join us tomorrow on the Rovio blog for photos from the BirdDay festivities! 

About Rovio Entertainment Ltd.
Rovio Entertainment Ltd, the creator of Angry Birds™, is a global industry-changing entertainment media company headquartered in Finland that creatively combines digital with physical, breaking the boundaries of traditional content delivery. What started as a casual game in 2009 became an international phenomenon within a few months of its release. Today Angry Birds is the most downloaded game of all time and a globally known entertainment brand in publishing, licensing, animations, books and location based entertainment. Rovio’s animated Angry Birds feature film is slated for July, 2016. www.rovio.com