Angry Birds maker to launch new title

Rovio is preparing to launch a new game to follow its wildly popular Angry Birds franchise. The company's CEO, Mikael Hed, said in an interview today with Finland's YLE breakfast television show that Rovio will be launching Amazing Alex in two months. The game will feature an educational element as players control a young boy named Alex who enjoys building things. That word from Rovio comes after the company acquired the intellectual property rights to Casey's Contraptions, a title developed by Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut. When users surf to the Casey's Contraption Web site now, they'll find a single image saying Amazing Alex is coming soon. A Facebook page says the same. When Amazing Alex launches, it'll have some awfully big shoes to fill. Just yesterday, Rovio announced that its Angry Birds games had reached 1 billion downloads. All of that success, in addition to help from sales of Angry Birds merchandise and advertising, helped Rovio generate over $106.3 million in revenue and a $67.6 million profit last year. Look for more details on Amazing Alex to emerge as Rovio inches closer to the launch of its new game.