Rovio: Piracy has its benefits

The CEO of Rovio Mobile, the Finnish studio that built the trailblazing Angry Birds franchise, believes there is some value in games piracy.

Speaking at the Midem conference in Cannes this morning, Mikael Hed said the games industry could learn from the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy".

Rovio has some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products,” Hed said, as quoted byThe Guardian."We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans.

We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fan base, our business is done, but if we can grow that fan base, our business will grow."

Develop has more details.