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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

#31

Post by corysama »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #16

If game shops operate as movie studios, why don't they simply hire people temporarily. Movie studios cut their staff to marketing, sales, and licensing once their work is completed and released.

Game shop operators have wanted to do that for a long time. The challenge has been that ramping up at a game studio has been a much longer process than ramping up on a movie project. The tools, skills and processes are a lot more consistent between movies than they are between games. It often takes working through a whole game to figure out how to be really effective at a particular studio. In practice, game shops that grow and shrink rapidly have found it to be more expensive than just holding on to the staff. This also has made outsourcing difficult and limited in games.

The situation is changing slowly as the industry converges on a small number of standardized game engines. Knowing Unity or Unreal makes you easy to hire at a lot of places. But, if everyone knows Unity or Unreal, it also makes you easy to replace.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#32

Post by rocky1138 »

This is such an assumptive title. Angry Birds is still very popular with children. This is like saying that Mario is no longer relevant because Super Mario Galaxy sold less than New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

It makes me wonder if TechCrunch has a stake in seeing Rovio fail when I read clickbaity headlines like this.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#33

Post by cookiecaper »

autobahn wrote: post #28

Brings up an interesting thought exercise. Let's say you do start a small mobile game company and your game blows up into a cultural phenomena like Angry Birds. And like all of these things, you know that one day in the indeterminate future, that phenomena will fade, much like Angry Birds has. How do you best handle this? Do you sell early and get out quickly? Do you try to build something larger out of the resources…

The thing that indie devs don't recognize about gaming is that it's a hits business, just like film and music. _Success of your franchise is not an endorsement_. People consume hits and toss them away for the next big thing all the time. The reasons independent game companies make these mistakes is that they conflate the mass appeal of their creation with a personal endorsement and assume anything they do in the future will be well-received. That's rarely the case.

To be a successful player in the hits business, you have to be putting out new, formulaic stuff constantly, aware that some percentage of it will never make back its money, some may break even, and some will make a lot of money. This is what movie studios, record companies, and the successful game conglomerates do. As much as it may get tiresome to see the bi-annual CoD release break records, it matches the expected behavior perfectly.

But I digress. The direct answer to your question is pretty similar to what it always is: don't grow too fast, don't let it go to your head, and diversify. Personally, if I was in that situation, I think selling out to Activision or EA, who already have a functional hits apparatus, would be a path warranting serious consideration. A lot of game developers are eventually forced into that position anyway after they make the erroneous assumptions discussed in this comment and become financially distressed.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#34

Post by dangero »

autobahn wrote: post #28

Brings up an interesting thought exercise. Let's say you do start a small mobile game company and your game blows up into a cultural phenomena like Angry Birds. And like all of these things, you know that one day in the indeterminate future, that phenomena will fade, much like Angry Birds has. How do you best handle this? Do you sell early and get out quickly? Do you try to build something larger out of the resources…

I believe the makers of Draw Something won this game. Sold right at the peak of popularity then faded to relative obscurity within a few months.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#35

Post by chkuendig »

autobahn wrote: post #28

Brings up an interesting thought exercise. Let's say you do start a small mobile game company and your game blows up into a cultural phenomena like Angry Birds. And like all of these things, you know that one day in the indeterminate future, that phenomena will fade, much like Angry Birds has. How do you best handle this? Do you sell early and get out quickly? Do you try to build something larger out of the resources…

Either you accept that this is a hit-based business, take the money and run.

... or you do what Rovio did and try to branch out beyond games and build a larger brand out of it.

That's probably easier than trying to find the next hit (see how that went for Zynga or how its currently going for King)

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#36

Post by stefanmielke »

nsxwolf wrote: post #27
tfandango wrote: post #6

I'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 sa…

Even so, Angry Birds 2 has a level of polish that makes the original look like some indie side project. If there's such thing as a AAA casual game, this is it. Which really shows how sad this business is -- a true sequel to a smash hit that goes way beyond the original sells so poorly that it leads to mass layoffs.

It's probably because it was too late for a true sequel to arrive. When the market was ready to receive another Angry Birds they threw 2 or 3 other games that where exactly like the first one. If the second was Angry Birds 2, it would be better received.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#37

Post by phn »

chkuendig wrote: post #25
phn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also tried publishing different games, Amazing Alex for example. The truth is, for such simple things and for this definition of "success" (i.e. being the global hit of the moment) there is no formula. For a comparison, look at King, what success do they have outside of candy crush? And it's not for the lack of games as they have quite a few.

As a counter-example, Supercell is extremely successful with Hay Day and Boom Beach besides Clash of Clans. Maybe it isn't all just luck.

It isn't all luck, but they spend a HUGE amount of money to keep the ad ball rolling.

And I may be being unfair not having played their games, but they follow the same mechanic, just being different themed, right?

It is too early to be sure, but I'd bet they're still riding their particular wave.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#38

Post by FilterSweep »

minimaxir wrote: post #3

The 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 B…

This is very important. I would also argue that Rovio never really achieved the "Freemium ideal" in the way that top grossing games: Clash of Clans, Game of War, and Candy Crush has.

Now are other examples in the reverse, where the game is far too expensive to attract a large userbase.

But Rovio hasn't been able to "toe the line" between an attractive "free-to-wait" game that is fun enough to draw in massive amounts of paying users - like other developers have - _despite_ having a brand marketable enough to make a movie off of.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#39

Post by BinaryIdiot »

zaphar wrote: post #10

Sounds 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?

I can't find the quote anymore but I remember their CEO, while the company was still very new, saying that they'll never need to move away from Angry Birds and people won't get tired of it because they'll keep releasing new Angry Birds stuff. Or something to that effect.

So I can't say I'm surprised. In fact I would have thought this would have happened a long time ago. They should look into creating some new IP. In my opinion anyway. That way they could become a gaming company instead of an Angry Birds company.

Re: Rovio to Cut 260 Jobs as the Angry Birds Franchise Becomes Irrelevant

#40

Post by abluecloud »

rocky1138 wrote: post #32

This is such an assumptive title. Angry Birds is still very popular with children. This is like saying that Mario is no longer relevant because Super Mario Galaxy sold less than New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It makes me wonder if TechCrunch has a stake in seeing Rovio fail when I read clickbaity headlines like this.

When you make 260 employees redundant, I'd say it's ok for people to make assumptions about your brand.
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