According to Wall Street Journal. Sega is close to paying $1 billion for Rovio Entertainment. The company behind the Angry Birds mobile game and series. According to WSJ sources, Sega might complete the major sale by early next week.
Given the drop in popularity of the Angry Birds games, it's odd that Sega — especially, its parent company Sega Sammy Holdings. Would want to spend so much money on Rovio. The initial game was a tremendous hit in 2009, but the franchise appears to have peaked in 2014, when Rovio revealed dwindling profitability and layoffs.
Rovio attempted a cinematic adaptation in 2016, The Angry Birds Movie, which was a box office triumph and is currently the ninth highest-grossing video game movie – despite negative reviews. Its 2019 sequel. The Angry Birds Movie 2, did not fare as well. Rovio watched as competitors such as Candy Crush gained in popularity, eroding interest in Angry Birds.
Rovio recently withdrew the original Angry Birds game from the Google Play Store, and the iOS version was renamed Red's First Flight. The move was made to entice players to its profitable freemium successors and disguise the original game's purchase once, play forever business model.
Rovio was reportedly on the verge of an $800 million agreement with Israeli company Playtika to take control, but those discussions ended in March. Sega may soon get the Finland-based Angry Birds firm instead.
Rovio's original Angry Birds game was the first to surpass 1 billion downloads (a record recognised by Guinness World Records). Rovio claimed last year that its entire library of games had reached 5 billion downloads. So the firm should be valued at a sixth of a dollar per download. Remember when Take-Two paid $12.7 billion for the social gaming company Zynga?
Sega has a fresh group of heroes on par with Sonic and their buddies waiting for an amazing mobile gaming series to propel them.