Sega confirms that they are acquiring Rovio, the development studio that made Angry Birds back in 2009 and have been riding that wave ever since. The deal, valued at $775 million (USD) was officially announced on Monday morning. Speculation late last week about this acquisition started to circulate with a $1 billion price tag associated with it.
Sega is looking to dive deeper into the mobile gaming market. They plan to combine their own intellectual properties, such as Sonic the Hedgehog, with Rovio's knowledge and expertise in mobile gaming. It's just a matter of time now before we get Angry Sonic where you fling the blue hedgehog against evil Robotniks or something.
Since that initial release of Angry Birds in 2009, Rovio has done little else outside of making new games that aren't Angry Birds related. There were only a few non-Angry Birds games released by Rovio since 2009 while there have been at least 24 Angry Birds titles released in the same span of time. None of the non-Angry Birds titles managed to gain any sort of traction. It will be interesting to see if Rovio can create a non-Angry Birds game for Sega that gains even a quarter of the traction that franchise has.
Rovio will join Sega Europe once this acquisition is completed. Sega expects this deal to be finalized by the end of September 2023. At that time, Rovio will join other Sega Europe studios such as Creative Assembly and Sports Interactive.
As part of a press release, Sega says that they expect mobile gaming to grow to 56% of the total gaming market by 2026. Sega wants a piece of that pie and will use Rovio's "distinctive know-how in live service mobile game operation to bring Sega's current and new titles to the global mobile gaming market, where there is large potential, and many users can be accessed."
Though $775 is quite a lot of money, it still pales in comparison to a number of other recent acquisitions within the gaming industry. Sony recently acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion. Then, of course, is Microsoft's push to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
