Sega buys Angry Birds maker Rovio for ?625m
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Angry Birds maker Rovio has agreed to be bought by Sega.
Sega Sammy Holdings is buying Finland-based Rovio for €706m (£625m). Sega expects the acquisition to close in the second quarter of the 2024 financial year, so by the end of September.
For Sega's part, it reckons the mobile gaming market is projected to account for 56 percent of the global gaming market overall by 2026, so buying Rovio is an attempt to strenghten its position there.
Sega has a history of buying studios. In 2005 it bought Total War developer Creative Assembly and, more recently, in 2013 bought Persona maker Atlus.
While Rovio is of course best known for Angry Birds, it sounds like Sega wants to use the company to help make mobile games based on Sega intellectual property.
"Through the acquisition, the company aims to take-in Rovio's live-operated mobile game development capabilities and expertise in mobile game operation, to accelerate the development of mobile-compatible and multi-platform-supported version of Sega's existing game IPs, thereby strengthening and further accelerating global expansion of Sega's game portfolio," Sega said.
Meanwhile, Sega said it will help Rovio expand beyond mobile gaming. "Rovio is aiming to expand its platform outside of mobile gaming, and Sega will actively look to support this process through its capabilities," the company said.
While Angry Birds has been a monster hit for Rovio since its release in 2009, the company has struggled to match its success since. In total, Rovio's mobile games have been downloaded over one billion times.
In February, Rovio sparked controversy when it removed the original Angry Birds from the Google Play store due to its business "impact" on the publisher's other games. On iOS, the game was renamed to Red's First Flight. Rovio subsequently said it could reverse the decision.