Sega to acquire Angry Birds developer Rovio in new $775 million deal

Sega is planning some big moves with the company looking to take over Rovio, the Finnish company responsible for the Angry Birds series.

The Japanese entertainment giant announced its plans to takeover Rovio recently with The Wall Street Journal marking the nearly $775 million USD (about $1 million CAD) deal as “close to completion.”

Sega has clarified that it’s looking to grow its position in the mobile gaming world, a market that Rovio knows very well. It’s planning to use the Finnish company’s experience to help bring Sega’s intellectual property to the mobile world.

The deal has been approved by Rovio’s board and shareholders and puts a $775 million price tag on the studio. Once acquired, Rovio will join companies like Creative Assemble and Sports Interactive as part of Sega Europe.

Sega says it’s confident that the deal will be completed by September 2023. In a press release, the company said that it expects mobile gaming to grow to 56 percent of the overall gaming market by 2026.

Sega is looking to help Rovio, too, with the company planning to help the Angry Birds developer expand its reach to other platforms besides the mobile world. Sega also noted that both companies have been active in multimedia, with both Angry Birds and Sonic the Hedgehog adding movies to their franchises.

Rovio is, of course, best known for the Angry Birds series. The hit mobile game was one of the touchstones of the mobile game surge of the early 2010s.

Since then, however, the company has struggled to grow following the popularity of Angry Birds. Sega’s acquisition will look to take what Rovio does best with mobile gaming and scale up the company in return.

Sega’s takeover will follow a handful of other blockbuster deals in recent memory, such as Sony’s multi-billion dollar acquisition of Bungie and Microsoft’s ongoing purchase of Activision Blizzard.

Source: Sega Via: Polygon