Sega Nears Deal To Acquire 'Angry Birds' Maker Rovio For $1 Billion (polygon.com) 14
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sega parent company Sega Sammy Holdings is nearing a deal to purchase "Angry Birds" maker Rovio for $1 billion. Polygon reports: Rovio is best known for Angry Birds, the physics puzzle game that launched on iOS in 2009. Rovio has delivered multiple sequels, spinoffs, and tie-ins with other brands, including Star Wars, Transformers, and the animated movie Rio. Sega and Rovio also teamed up in 2015 to bring Sonic the Hedgehog characters to Angry Birds Epic, a turn-based RPG. An animated series and two feature films were also released using Angry Birds characters.
Angry Birds' global success hasn't translated to Rovio's other games, which include action-role-playing game Darkfire Heroes and colorful matching games Small Town Murders and Sugar Blast. Sega's current mobile game lineup includes a variety of Sonic the Hedgehog running games and retro games from the Sega Genesis era.
Angry Birds' global success hasn't translated to Rovio's other games, which include action-role-playing game Darkfire Heroes and colorful matching games Small Town Murders and Sugar Blast. Sega's current mobile game lineup includes a variety of Sonic the Hedgehog running games and retro games from the Sega Genesis era.
$1 Billion for THAT company!? (Score:2)
Anyone out there have any insight on how that price makes any sense for a company that hasnt had a major hit in over a decade?
I mean, I know the stock market is bloated by all the excess wealth our billionaires have but I didnt think company evaluations were this out of wack.
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Doing what they do nowadays, rebundling and selling merch. Angry birds has more going for them than most of their other brands. My kids love the animated series.
Yeah, the game was fun and the birds and pigs were cute. That's not as common of a situation as you'd think.
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We talking about the company that screwed over pretty much every store and game publisher by doing a stupid suprise early launch of the saturn, at a point they burned the bridges with EA and many, many other companies.
And several other terrible decisions.
You call that a disaster, but that's a tuesday for sega.
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There's a decent mini documentary about Why Did Angry Birds Go Bankrupt? [youtube.com]
Sega is probably banking on all the merchandising. We'll see it if pays off.
How the fuck can Rovio ACTUALLY be worth $1B? (Score:1)
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Movies, games, toys, TV shows (multiple). It's the same with when MS bought Minecraft. They aren't just buying a game or three, they are getting an IP empire that already has an solidly established foothold that isn't letting up yet.
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Rovio never learned its lesson (Score:4, Insightful)
Angry Birds' global success hasn't translated to Rovio's other games, which include action-role-playing game Darkfire Heroes and colorful matching games Small Town Murders and Sugar Blast. Sega's current mobile game lineup includes a variety of Sonic the Hedgehog running games and retro games from the Sega Genesis era.
That's because after Angry Birds they stopped making games and instead made Angry Birds themed skinner boxes with pay to win mechanics. They're not the only games company to smear shit all over their popular IP. PopCap did the same with Plants vs Zombies & Peggle with similar consequences.
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Angry Birds' global success hasn't translated to Rovio's other games, which include action-role-playing game Darkfire Heroes and colorful matching games Small Town Murders and Sugar Blast. Sega's current mobile game lineup includes a variety of Sonic the Hedgehog running games and retro games from the Sega Genesis era.
That's because after Angry Birds they stopped making games and instead made Angry Birds themed skinner boxes with pay to win mechanics. They're not the only games company to smear shit all over their popular IP. PopCap did the same with Plants vs Zombies & Peggle with similar consequences.
Micro transactions ruin mobile games, but copycat games kill mobile game makers. The minute something fun comes along that's unique and is actually worth buying, there will be ten lookalike games in an app store that are free but have ads and leak personal data like a sieve, but they're free and that's what people will choose, so the original game company has to start giving away a "free" copy and find other ways to make revenue. Mobile gaming ends up being a race to the bottom.
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I think they are all hoping for another Angry Birds like hit that they can turn into other media. Sega has Sonic already, now two movies in and with a third likely. Thing is, Sega hasn't made any decent original IP for a couple of decades. The Dreamcast era had some good stuff like Crazy Taxi, but after they stopped doing hardware they also stopped making original stuff it seems.
These days it's all just new versions of old IPs.
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Angry Birds' global success hasn't translated to Rovio's other games, which include action-role-playing game Darkfire Heroes and colorful matching games Small Town Murders and Sugar Blast. Sega's current mobile game lineup includes a variety of Sonic the Hedgehog running games and retro games from the Sega Genesis era.
That's because after Angry Birds they stopped making games and instead made Angry Birds themed skinner boxes with pay to win mechanics. They're not the only games company to smear shit all over their popular IP. PopCap did the same with Plants vs Zombies & Peggle with similar consequences.
I think it's simply that Rovio was a one-hit wonder, and not being able to create a second hit they shifted to a strategy of finding ways to extract additional value from their existing IP.
The micro-transaction model sucks, but the alternative was likely a slow ride towards bankruptcy (as opposed to the billion dollar exit they just pulled off).