If you don’t think the casual gaming market is, unfortunately, the wave of gaming’s future, Rovio has something to say about that. Their suicidal bird franchise, Angry Birds, has now been downloaded over one billion times. To put some perspective on that number, the human population was estimated to finally hit seven billion. Rovio made a little cartoon for everyone saying thanks, which you can view after the break.

Rovio, the Finnish company behind the iOS/Android/every-other-platform-ever hit Angry Birds has announced their financials for 2011. Not surprisingly, the company made a ridiculous amount of money — just shy of $100 million, or 75.4 million Euros. Not surprisingly, this has put the company in a good position to begin the work of taking Rovio public.

Hey, everybody? You want to go to Angry Birds Land? Of course you don’t; it sounds horrible! But what if I told you it’s neither a dangerous aviary nor a real-life interpretation of Hitchcock’s The Birds, but rather a theme park attraction based on the popular mobile game? Also, it’s in Finland. Personally, I’m landing on a solid “Okay, maybe?” Regardless of your excitement, or lack thereof, Angry Birds Land has opened at Finland’s Särkänniemi Adventure Park and is bound to be a little more intense than the game it’s based on.

The first true sequel to Angry Birds, Angry Birds Space, released a few days ago, and as revealed on Twitter, has already hit ten million downloads. As of last year, the three other Angry Birds releases, which includes the main game and two releases that are more akin to an expansion pack than an actual sequel, surpassed over half a billion downloads.

Rovio has always been keen on finding interesting ways to publicize their record-breaking Angry Birds franchise. Angry Birds Space is no exception. To this end, a giant angry bird — the red one — has been affixed to Seattle’s Space Needle in honor of yesterday’s official release. Needless to say, the scale is impressive. How impressive, exactly? Well, the slingshot is about 300 feet long, and the bird is 35 feet in its own right. But are there any orbiting pigs to target?

For those who knocked down every single pig-guarded tower they could, leaving nothing but unhappy pigs and rubble in their wake, rejoice, for the first true sequel to Angry Birds, Angry Birds Space, has released today.

What do they do on the International Space Station? Play Angry Birds with a keychain and some ping pong balls. And probably some other things too. Check out this video starring Don Pettit as he plays Angry Birds and does other things on the International Space Station. Also, stick around until 3:03 for some Angry Birds Space gameplay footage for desert. The game comes out on March 22, but it’s not too early to get excited to finally have something fun to do on public transit again, or on the toilet.

On February 21, Korean National Police Agency teamed up with Rovio Entertainment to create a campaign in which Rovio’s iconic Angry Birds can be used as a sort of anger management in a campaign that aims to prevent violence in schools. That’s right, Korea thinks that a video game — even one with the word “Angry” in the title — can actually help prevent violence. I wish I could say more of my own countrymen were equally enlightened.

Sure, some of the Angry Birds have already been in space, but starting March 22 they’re going to be launching a whole new campaign to settle once and for all the question of who is the best at space. Details are pretty sparse at the moment, but really there isn’t much that “Angry Birds Space” doesn’t say for itself. With Angry Birds having spun themselves out into so many different aspects of our Earthly culture, it’s only logical that they tackle the dark abyss.

Gene Simmons has a lot more going on upstairs than you might think. In a recent interview with Industry Gamers, the legendary long-tongued bassist for KISS showed his business accumen while discussing the various projects he’s working on, including a digital translation service called Orstbo (did you know Simmons speaks five languages? Crazy!). Dear to his heart is an effort to take the KISS brand to places it has never been before, such as a Hello Kitty line and appearing in Archie Comics. However, Simmons dropped a real bunker buster by saying that he’s working on an Angry Birds deal. Yes, that Angry Birds.