Sega has confirmed that it is set to purchase Angry Birds studio Rovio.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, the acquisition will be for $ 776 million, considerably less than the estimated worth of $ 1 billion by the Wall Street Journal.
In their official press release, Sega stated that:
“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.”
Sega also described the acquisition as a friendly takeover, as Rovio’s board agreed to and expressed support for the tender offer.
While a seemingly unlikely combination on paper, this does fall in line with Sega’s interests as a third party developer and publisher.
While Sega has its own warchest of legacy video game franchises, it has found contemporary success acquiring some choice game companies, each with a unique specialty and genre, and published their games to great success.
The most high profile of those acquisitions, depending on who you speak to, is either fellow Japanese studio Atlus, or British studio Creative Assembly.
Sega acquired Creative Assembly first in 2005, after the studio had depended on Electronic Arts and then Activision. This partnership has worked out for both companies, as Sega took the Total War franchise to the modern generation, and even to video game consoles. Creative Assembly also acquired the Warhammer license for Total War, and made original projects, like Alien: Isolation, under Sega’s watch.
The Atlus acquisition happened in 2013, a life-saving move for Atlus as its parent company Index had filed for bankruptcy. Under Sega, Atlus enjoyed some degree of autonomy, and pursued development of titles for both Nintendo and PlayStation platforms. That include the revitalization of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, new projects like Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Etrian Odyssey, and most recently, a turn towards more multiplatform releases.
On Rovio’s end, this follows the company removing classic Angry Birds from mobile stores, to the outrage of the franchise’s fans.
But Rovio’s career trajectory has been a meteoric, seemingly inexplicable rise, followed by a similarly inexplicable fall. The Angry Birds Movie did not do for them what The Super Mario Bros Movie is doing for Nintendo right now.
With all that in mind, it makes sense that Rovio would eagerly take a buyout at this juncture. Both Rovio and Sega would benefit from sharing business experience. This may or may not lead to a comeback for Angry Birds, but at least the company and its employees have a new direction to look forward to, and potential they would not have seen otherwise.
