Sega is reportedly close to acquiring Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment for about $1 billion.
According to Wall Street Journal, the deal between Sega and Rovio Entertainment is expected to finish early next week, provided that discussions between the two companies don’t fall apart or prolong.
Neither Sega nor Rovio has made an official announcement yet. Rovio was previously in talks to be acquired by Israeli mobile company Playtika for $800 million, but those negotiations ended last month. Sega has acquired a few companies over the past few years, including Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment, Two Point Campus developer Two Point Studios, and most notably Persona developer Atlus.
There have been many acquisitions in the video game industry recently, including Microsoft’s deal to merge with Activision Blizzard, as well as Sony’s merger with Bungie. In particular, the mobile gaming space is growing as well. Activision Blizzard’s Candy Crush franchise would be a big boon to Microsoft’s portfolio and Sony formed a mobile division to create games based on new and existing IPs last year. Additionally, Take-Two Interactive acquired mobile developer Zynga last year.
Angry Birds was first released in 2009 and is one of the most popular mobile games ever. Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was released in March 2022, which includes the original Angry Birds game with all chapters alongside all Easter eggs and extras at the time.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
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