Japanese gaming brand Sega announced on Monday, April 17, the acquisition of Rovio, a Finland-based game developer best known for the Angry Birds franchise, for $776 million.
Rovio was founded in 2003 and became one of the famous major success stories in the European technology industry. Even though the company had produced several games prior to the arrival of Android and iOS, it was the flourishing smartphone era that catapulted Rovio into the mainstream scene, thanks to its game Angry Birds becoming a worldwide hit and franchise spanning almost everything from toys to books, to movies and a TV show.
Sega was founded in 1960 and is best known in the gaming world for its Sonic the Hedgehog franchises, as well as consoles such as the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, highly popular outside of Japan in the 1990s.
With Rovio under its umbrella, the Tokyo-based company Sega will utilize Rovio to expand its presence in the mobile gaming market and said it would make use of its live-operated mobile game development capabilities in order to boost the creation of mobile-based versions of its already-existing game titles.
Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, Rovio CEO, said that the lead character in Angry Birds named Red and Sonic the Hedgehog were “two globally recognized and iconic characters made by two remarkably complementary companies, with a worldwide reach that spans mobile, PC/console, and beyond.”
Haruki Satomi, Sega Sammy’s Group CEO, said:
“Among the rapidly growing global gaming market, the mobile gaming market has especially high potential, and it has been SEGA’s long-term goal to accelerate its expansion in this field. Angry Birds is loved across the world. I am confident that, through combination of both companies’ brands, characters, fanbase, as well as corporate culture and functionality, there will be significant synergies created going forward.”