Sega on the purchase of Rovio: a great strategic opportunity to bring their games to a larger audience

Sega’s purchase of Rovio is another example of a large console and PC publisher taking over a mobile game company, a very competitive industry. The operation valued at 706 million euros is not yet closed, but both parties already visualize plans for the future. Sega sees Rovio as a strategic opportunity to bring its intellectual properties to a global audience through mobile gaming, while Rovio is enthusiastic about the idea as it considers porting Angry Birds to other platforms.

“From a strategic point of view, this is a great opportunity for Sega to expand its business in the global market,” Haruki Satomi, president and CEO of Sega Sammy Holdings, told Game Industry. Satomi says the Japanese company’s goal is to use Rovio’s strengths, including its level of development and management in the mobile gaming sector, to reach the global market that will allow Sega to reach a new level of growth. Sega’s presence in mobile gaming is minor, but with Rovio in the same boat that could change significantly.

For Rovio’s part, it is “excited” about helping Sega broaden the audience for its intellectual properties and reach more people in the global market for mobile games. It’s not yet clear, at least publicly, what role Rovio will play in developing games that use Sega’s intellectual property. You can be a support or directly involved in bringing the sagas to mobile devices. Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, executive director of the Finnish company, shows his motivation at the possibility of replicating the success of Angry Birds with Sega franchises.

Among the attractions that Sega has seen in Rovio is the Beacon platform, which is used to manage mobile game development, publishing, updates, and live operations. “This is what Sega was missing,” says Satomi. The company will add Beacon to the already available mobile games.

Sega also thinks of Rovio as an element that will help in accelerating its transmedia plans. In this aspect, both companies are well served. Sonic has two animated films that accumulate more than 700 million dollars in revenue, the Sonic Prime series for Netflix and other products that go beyond video games such as Legos and toys. For its part, Rovio has released Angry Birds movies and several animated series as well as toys. And both have the same ally called Nintendo. Sega believes that the success of Super Mario Bros.: The Movie will accelerate the transmedia trend in video games.