Sega just announced that it is officially buying Rovio, the Finnish mobile game developer best known for the Angry Birds series, for a sweet $775 million. The deal turned out quite well for Sega because The Wall Street Journal had predicted a far higher price tag of $1 billion for those flying birds. Rovio’s board and shareholders have approved the acquisition, and the deal is expected to be completed by the end of September 2023. Rovio will then become part of Sega Europe, which includes other studios like Creative Assembly (known for Total War) and Sports Interactive (known for Football Manager).
Sega has taken this step intending to strengthen its position in the mobile gaming space and use Rovio’s expertise and presence to bring its own IPs to mobile, including Sonic The Hedgehog. Sega’s press release predicts that mobile gaming is expected to make up 56% of the gaming industry by 2026.
Sega Confirms Angry Birds Acquisition And Push Into Mobile
On the other hand, Sega also plans to help Rovio expand its gaming business outside of mobile gaming and launch its games on other platforms as well. Sega and Rovio have both had success in the animated movie realm, as both Angry Birds and Sonic the Hedgehog have made it to movie theaters with great success for the latter.
Rovio’s Angry Birds was one of the earliest and most popular games on smartphones when it was released way back in 2009. However, the company had struggled to break out of the Angry Birds business, leading to controversy earlier this year when it delisted the original paid game on Android and renamed it Red’s First Flight on iOS.
Sega’s acquisition of Rovio shows that the video game industry’s acquisition trend is still going strong. Huge deals like Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie and Microsoft’s still-ongoing struggle to purchase Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion shook the industry to its core.