Sega could buy Angry Birds developer Rovio for a staggering $1 billion, with the deal closing as early as next week.
That comes from a report in The Wall Street Journal, which spoke to people familiar with the situation. The deal is apparently expected to close sometime next week, assuming discussions don’t fail or otherwise get in the way. There has been no official comment from Sega or Rovio on the potential deal. Earlier this year, Israeli digital entertainment company Playtika was preparing to buy Rovio for a smaller sum of nearly $800 million, but talks ended in March.
Rovio is obviously best known for the Angry Birds series, the first game of which was released in 2009. It was an incredible success from the start, spawning numerous sequels, spinoffs, merchandise and several film adaptations. But the series’ popularity has waned over the years, especially as mobile gaming habits have changed, moving away from casual experiences to deeper, more fulfilling titles like Genshin Impact. All of this makes it a bit odd that Sega could potentially acquire a developer, especially for such a large amount of money (although I guess for such a large company, only numbers like Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard a lot of money).
Inexplicably, earlier this year Rovio decided to remove the original Angry Birds game (rebranded as Rovio Classics: Angry Birds) from the Google Play Store, seemingly because it didn’t like the fact that people had to pay 79p up. It also renamed the game on iOS to Red’s First Flight, though the game is now available again on the Google Play Store under that title. Maybe Sega didn’t like that option, and spent a little over 79p to make sure it still played the original Angry Birds.
