Google engineer rant suggests Google+ Games was an afterthought

Believe it or not, some people aren't very happy with Google+. Take Steve Yegge, a Google engineer who accidentally posted what was meant to be an internal rant to fellow Google employees to his over 2,000 followers on the new social network. Reposted by many of his followers, the 5,000 plus-word diatribe hits every gory to explain Yegge's beef with Google+.

And that includes Google+ Games. Frankly, Yegge seems to think that the games portion of Google's second attempt at a social network is, well, uninspired. "Our Google+ team took a look at the aftermarket and said: 'Gosh, it looks like we need some games. Let's go contract someone to, um, write some games for us,'" Yegge wrote. "Do you begin to see how incredibly wrong that thinking is now? The problem is that we are trying to predict what people want and deliver it for them."

While that last quip seems to contradict his previous comment on Google+ Games, his message is clear. Yegge thinks Games were an afterthought for Google, which he seems to think is why the search giant enlisted the help of major social game developers like Zynga, PopCap and Kabam to release their existing games on the platform. Yegge has since publicly apologized for accidentally posting the essay rant.

Most recently, Zynga launched its brand new Mafia Wars 2 on Google+ Games. And before that, Google updated the platform with features that, while impressive, have been considered fundamental to Facebook games for some time. Recent estimates put the number of Google+ users at around 43 million, but how many of those are playing games is still unknown. And with sentiments such as this flying around, we imagine much work needs to be done for Google+ Games to be considered a viable alternative to Facebook gaming. If you have about 30 minutes, you can read Yegge's rant in full right here.

Angry Birds maker Rovio looking at $1 billion IPO next year

Thanks to those irate, wingless birds, Rovio is worth lots and lots of money, apparently. Speaking with Bloomberg, the Angry Birds creator's CMO Peter Vesterbacka said, "We're not ready to file for an IPO tomorrow. Maybe a year from now." And speaking to the recent estimations that Rovio is worth around $1 billion, Vesterbacka all but confirmed the guesswork.

"We're happy with our valuation but we think it's probably a bit north of that," Vesterbacka said to Bloomberg. So, there you have it: Regular folks like you and I might be able to invest in the creator of Angry Birds by sometime next year. Also known as Rovio's Mighty Eagle, a play on the in-game character, Vesterbacka said that the company is "insanely profitable."

While we're not sure, we're going to make an educated guess and say that the Angry Birds' insane profitably comes from, oh, I don't know, the fact that they're everywhere? From big-time movie deals to plush toys, cookbooks, board games and stadium screen games, Rovio's flagship franchise is everywhere. And it's through this massive push that the company looks to be the first entertainment brand with 1 billion fans.

The two never seem to come up in the same conversation, but Rovio sounds more and more like Zynga every day, though with a vastly different strategy. As rumors stir of a FarmVille movie in the works (sound familiar?), Rovio toys with the idea of becoming a games publisher (again, sound familiar?). It makes one wonder if the two will ever clash. Hey, Angry Birds is supposedly in development on Facebook, after all.

[Via Mashable]

Do you think Angry Birds can sustain the Angry Birds fever into 2012 for its potential initial public offering? Do you think Zynga and Rovio consider each other a threat?