UPDATE: Just couple of days after the TheWall Street Journal report, SEGA confirms it has agreed to acquire Rovio for £625 million.
This may come as a surprise considering SEGA‘s recent stability, as it’s hard to say that Angry Birds, Rovio’s golden brand, retains its former popularity. As the successful recipe of the original game lost ground over time, Rovio made many changes from different map types to different modes, and even removed the original game of the series from Android and renamed the iOS version as “Red’s First Flight” on the grounds that it negatively affected the performance of new games. Finally, in March 2022, Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was re-released and many easter eggs were added to the game.
Angry Birds has been steadily losing players for the last decade, and the two subsequent animated movies have failed to reverse the trend, at least in terms of positive reviews.
SEGA, on the other hand, has made some pretty safe, risk-averse moves during this period, acquiring Atlus, developer of Persona, Relic Entertainment, developer of WH40K and Company of Heroes, and Two Point Studios, developer of Two Point Hospital, all of which are extraordinarily successful developers. SEGA also tried to acquire Playtika for 800 million dollars, but these negotiations didn’t come to a conclusion.
It’s a fact that the gaming industry has been seriously active with giant acquisitions since last year. SEGA’s acquisition is expected to both contribute to the company’s strength on mobile platforms and help accelerate Rovio’s momentum, which has been quite flat for years.
