Offended Birds firm Rovio might promote to Sega for $1 billion

Sega is reportedly shut to purchasing Rovio Leisure — the corporate that owns the Offended Birds cell sport franchise — for a whopping $1 billion, in line with The Wall Road Journal. Sega might lock within the large deal by early subsequent week, in line with individuals talking with WSJ.

It’s shocking to assume that Sega — particularly, its father or mother firm Sega Sammy Holdings — would wish to spend a lot on Rovio given the decline in reputation of the Offended Birds video games. The unique sport was a smash success in 2009, however the franchise has seemingly fallen off since its 2014 peak, when Rovio reported falling income and layoffs.

In 2016, Rovio tried a film adaptation, The Offended Birds Film, which was a field workplace success and continues to be the seventh highest grossing online game film — even when critiques weren’t sort. Its 2019 sequel, The Offended Birds Film 2, didn’t obtain the identical success. Rovio watched as opponents like Sweet Crush grew increasingly, consuming away curiosity in Offended Birds.

Just lately, Rovio eliminated its authentic Offended Birds sport from the Google Play Retailer, and it renamed the iOS model to Purple’s First Flight. The transfer was achieved seemingly to maneuver gamers over to its profitable freemium sequels and obscure the purchase as soon as and play endlessly enterprise mannequin of the unique sport.

Rovio beforehand neared an $800 million deal for Israeli developer Playtika to take over, however these talks formally dwindled in March. Now, Sega may quickly personal the Finland-based Offended Birds firm as a substitute.

Perhaps Sega’s received a brand new set of heroes on par with Sonic and mates, simply ready for an epic cell video games franchise to propel them.