Angry Birds breaks open Bad Piggy Bank in-game payment for Android

Angry Birds for Android will soon let you pay to get rid of ads, with the currently undisclosed fee charged directly to your phone bill rather than via Google Checkout. The hugely popular game's Finnish developer, Rovio, wants other Android app makers to use its new system too.

Bad Piggy Bank will also let players download the Mighty Eagle cheat. As TechCrunch reports, Rovio's Peter Vesterbacka said the company was "not picking on Android particularly, but I think that the payment method up to now has been less than perfect".

The system will require Rovio to do deals with each individual phone network, so we don't expect it to launch in the UK until next year. Whether Google will allow the system in the Android Market remains to be seen.

Vesterbacka confirmed that the game would be coming to PC, Mac and consoles, with online developments happening in the new year.

In other Angry Birds news, the vicious pig-bombers were defeated by MLB At Bat in the list of highest-grossing iPhone apps of the year. The baseball app offers video and scores from jumped-up rounders America's summer game, for a fee of $14.99 (£9.50) per season -- exorbitant compared to 59p for Angry Birds, which came second.

Closer to home, Angry Birders convened on London's Trafalgar Square on Saturday to take part in the global #AngryBirdsDay Twitter event. We were on hand to see the flashmob-style group pose as a peace protest, calling on the birds and pigs to 'stop the madness' and patch up their differences -- check out our pics here.