The company which gave the very popular game Angry Birds, Rovio Entertainment Limited is all set to make a class apart 3D movie on angry birds in association with Sony (SNE, Financial). The Finland based company decided to jump on to movie making from mobile gaming due to its ever decreasing profits which went down as much as 73%.
Angry Birds’ current market scenario
Rove entertainment Limited was founded in 2003 by the name RElude which got changed to Rovio mobile and Rovio Entertainment in 2005 and 2011 respectively. It was in 2009 that after launching 51 successful mobile games, Rovio launched Angry Birds which turned out to be blockbuster.
Angry Birds is a puzzle game in which a bird is flooding, using a slingshot for the iPhone. Within six months, the game reached the number 1 position and stayed there for pretty long. The game was downloaded over 1 Billion times by May 2012 in which 25% were paid downloads. Priced initially at $0.99 for the download, it soon became one of the top selling games in the Apple (AAPL, Financial) App store. After its huge success, Rovio started recreating the game for other smartphones as well including Android, Symbian and Windows phone operating system. Further the game expanded to Video game consoles and PCs. The game came out with a lot of versions and updates such as Angry Birds seasons, Angry bird rio, Angry bird friends, Angry birds space and Angry birds star wars. However, with passing time people got over its charm and fun somehow and even the Angry Birds merchandise like branded toys, clothing and sweats started to see decline in popularity. Rovio could never regain its profit margins afterwards and its total sales fell 9% last year to $169 million at the time when mobile gaming industry was booming. Rovio’s revenues from mobile games grew 16% to close at $110.7 million with the help of some new offerings. In its toys business too, Angry Birds brand is no more working and virtual game makers like Nintendo (NTDOY, Financial) amigo and Disney (DIS, Financial) infinity are taking the lead.
The next step: Animation movie
Rovio in an attempt to bring back the mass appeal in Angry Birds is planning to take the next step forward bringing the games’ characters to life and even adding few more characters. In association with Sony, who won the global film rights will be on board with Rovio to make their first feature film "Angry Birds 3D." Claimed as one of the most high-profile deals of the year, Rovio will be the developer and Sony will be releasing it worldwide on July 1, 2016.
This is not the first time that Angry Birds will be seen on the big screen; in the past as well, the game had some successful movie tie-ups including Angry Bird Rio and the popular animated flick Rio in 2011. The game was also featured in "The Croods" as well as a weekly Angry Birds Toons animated series was also launched by one of the franchise in March this year.
John Cohen and Maisel, the "Despicable Me" and "Iron Man" producers, will be brought on board for their sheer talent and experience to make Angry Birds 3D a big hit. The production cost will come to around $80 million with Sony and Rovio jointly paying for the marketing cost that is estimated to be higher than the production cost.
Conclusion
One reason that came up for the failure of Angry Birds game was Rovio’s inability to understand the fast shifting to the free-to-play game mode. Other popular games are making money by in-game purchasing and advertising while offering the game download for free. The main aim is to not lose the interest in the game itself. Bygone will be bygones; Rovio now has high expectations from this new movie venture to bring back their high growth phase.
