Sega has introduced that it’s to accumulate cell improvement studio Rovio, greatest identified for the Offended Birds sequence of physics puzzlers. The acquisition is anticipated to undergo within the second quarter of the 2023-24 fiscal 12 months and is valued at a number of hundred million euros in shares.
Per a press launch, Sega will buy “the whole lot of Rovio’s excellent shares and choices” at a complete worth of €706 million (round $775 million). Sega says the acquisition is a “pleasant takeover”, as Rovio’s board has agreed to and expressed help for the provide.
In line with Sega, the acquisition is a part of shoring up its stake within the “fast-growing cell and international gaming market”. Sega factors to Rovio’s success with the Offended Birds franchise and “distinctive know-how in stay service cell recreation operation” as one of many principal causes for purchasing the studio, pointing to the cell market’s “massive potential” for development.
So, what’s subsequent for Sega and Rovio? Assuming the acquisition goes by means of (and there is not a lot trigger to consider it will not), Sega intends to “carry Sega’s present and new titles to the worldwide cell gaming market”, so we’re more likely to see extra Sega cell titles, doubtless developed by Rovio.
As well as, the press launch says Rovio intends to “broaden its platform outdoors of cell gaming”, so we are able to maybe anticipate to see extra Offended Birds video games (and possibly even new Rovio IPs) showing on platforms aside from cell sooner or later.
Main gaming corporations usually purchase cell studios with a view to construct their presence within the cell market. Whether or not it is Sony shopping for up cell developer Savage or Take-Two’s then-record-breaking Zynga buy, massive publishers look to cell studios with expertise in order that they will construct their cell divisions with experience on their facet.
Doing so makes plenty of sense, too, as a result of the cell market is completely big. In October 2021, Tencent formally grew to become the proprietor of the world’s first $10 billion cell recreation within the type of Honor of Kings, a wildly profitable MOBA that is vastly fashionable in Asia. Even when a cell recreation achieves a fraction of that success, doing so would nonetheless be a vastly tantalizing prospect for main gaming studios.
Time will inform what the Sega-Rovio deal will yield, so keep tuned for extra on this as quickly as we get it.
