Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
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Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#2The article paints Angry Birds 2 as a paid app losing out to freemium apps, but when I downloaded it, it was a free app with way too many freemium parts. I deleted it shortly after, as I'm not interested in freemium mobile apps.
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#3The important chart missed is the Grossing rank for Angry Birds 2, which has been hovering at about #50 grossing since launch. It was not going to be a megasuccess like the first Angry Birds, or even a low-tier modern freemium title. (for reference, Fallout Shelter, a game that was highly experimental for Bethesda, is currently at #32 overall Grossing)
It probably doesn't help that there have been more than 5 Angry Birds games already and people are sick of the gameplay. I'll give Rovio credit for trying to diversify from physics based games (Fight, Epic, Stella, Rovio Stars, etc.).
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#4Was it ever relevant? Popular, sure. But relevant?
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#5Rovio seemed to be building a content distribution network within their apps (toons.tv). I was somewhat surprised they didn't move further into that direction.
They had the brand and merchandising, just not enough personality to create a Loony Toons-like experience.
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#6I'm not surprised, they have been cranking out the same game over and over again, re-branded and/or adding slightly different abilities without changing the basic game. After playing the Star Wars version for a little while I deleted it because the concept (while initially fun and interesting) had gotten old. They did release something called "Bad Piggies" too which I thought was a fun different game but along the same theme but that didn't seem to take off.
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#7The article paints Angry Birds 2 as a paid app losing out to freemium apps, but when I downloaded it, it was a free app with way too many freemium parts. I deleted it shortly after, as I'm not interested in freemium mobile apps.
Not really, the article quite clearly says "... and its freemium model doesn’t seem to be working great."
At the end the article mentions the game wasn't designed with the current freemium model in mind (since the first iteration was pay-to-install), maybe that threw you off?
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#8Was it ever relevant? Popular, sure. But relevant?
Angry Birds was the franchise that a) first proved that you could make a media empire from a single app and b) you can sell apps for $0.99 and still get mega-rich.
Incidentally, b) is no longer the case.
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#9Don't large game companies frequently shed staff after a large title has been released?
Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant
#10Sounds like a case of too many eggs in one basket. Why didn't they diversify more into the micro transaction space with a different game I wonder?