Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded • Hacker News Board

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#11

Post by ssharp » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:32 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #8

jasonkostempski wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid and I would still be playing Angry Birds and he would still be asking for the merch this Christmas if I hadn't become extremely disgusted with the constant push to make in-app purchases and buy other apps. It's before, during and after every board, every retry. I stopped playing, encouraged him to play other things and I eventually removed it from all our devices, it hasn't been missed since. They should have…

I never appreciated how awful the modern gaming environment was until I had a kid. For little kids in particular, it's incredibly difficult for them to deal with accidentally clicking the "buy X now" buttons and back out of the purchase process. Personally, I shifted my son and nephews/nieces to old video game consoles. They love the NES, N64 and ColecoVision that we found in my parent's attic, and there's no nickel…

My nieces each have Amazon tablets they play games on. I watch them play and they're become experts at clearing out the in-app purchase come-ons. They don't seem to have much of an issue with it, but it annoys me seeing them have to do it. I guess it's the price you pay for the sheer volume of choices you have. When I grew up with the NES, I couldn't get hundreds of games to try out for free.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#12

Post by zeograd » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:40 PM UTC

This post was an opportunity to discover that Rovio had much more employee than what I expected.

Angry bird looks so much like one of those flash games you can create with a single coder and a single designer I never imagined they had more than 800 people now. I would have guessed a small dozen max...

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#13

Post by debacle » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:44 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #4

I guess they were not able to innovate enough. It was a good franchise, but it hasn't had the longevity of things like Minecraft or Halo. Details: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=angry%20birds%2C%20mi... I wonder what they could have done differently? They sure licensed enough IP to create Star Wars, Rio, etc variants. They tried expanding into freemium racing games. I wonder if there was a way forward for the…

Angry Birds had excellent design (Visually), something that has made both Rovio and King stand out.

I think Rovio just tried to monetize (and merchandize) too hard, in a way not fitting the mobile model. They should have tried to focus on growing horizontally and making the Rovio brand bigger than the Angry Birds brand.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#14

Post by dougk16 » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:47 PM UTC

zeograd wrote: post #12

This post was an opportunity to discover that Rovio had much more employee than what I expected. Angry bird looks so much like one of those flash games you can create with a single coder and a single designer I never imagined they had more than 800 people now. I would have guessed a small dozen max...

I worked on a clone of Angry Birds a few years ago and you're right with one of your figures: about a dozen people were required to pull it off in about 9 months. Definitely not doable by a single coder and artist/designer though. There's a perhaps underappreciated but quite insane level of polish that went into Angry Birds, especially with the level design.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#15

Post by Igglyboo » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

zeograd wrote: post #12

This post was an opportunity to discover that Rovio had much more employee than what I expected. Angry bird looks so much like one of those flash games you can create with a single coder and a single designer I never imagined they had more than 800 people now. I would have guessed a small dozen max...

Possibly, but the amount of polish needed to turn a simple flash game into a billion dollar flash game requires more than a single programmer.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#16

Post by Kiro » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

zeograd wrote: post #12

This post was an opportunity to discover that Rovio had much more employee than what I expected. Angry bird looks so much like one of those flash games you can create with a single coder and a single designer I never imagined they had more than 800 people now. I would have guessed a small dozen max...

I don't know if I agree. The Angry Birds games are very polished with a lot of details.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#17

Post by Lennu » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #2

the press release doesn't give much context to what this is about - why are they reducing headcount? what's the story here?

2.10.2014 Rovio started employee co-operation negotiations because the growth hasn't been what was expected. The negotiations resulted to reduce the workforce by 110 people.

This procedure is required by Finlands law and this might seem abit strange to people from other countries where firing someone is not a case of 2 months.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#18

Post by minimaxir » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #13

bhouston wrote: post #4

I guess they were not able to innovate enough. It was a good franchise, but it hasn't had the longevity of things like Minecraft or Halo. Details: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=angry%20birds%2C%20mi... I wonder what they could have done differently? They sure licensed enough IP to create Star Wars, Rio, etc variants. They tried expanding into freemium racing games. I wonder if there was a way forward for the…

Angry Birds had excellent design (Visually), something that has made both Rovio and King stand out. I think Rovio just tried to monetize (and merchandize) too hard, in a way not fitting the mobile model. They should have tried to focus on growing horizontally and making the Rovio brand bigger than the Angry Birds brand.

They did try that by publishing apps under the Rovio Stars brand. None of the published apps became as big as Angry Birds though, so it was moot.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#19

Post by CalRobert » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 3:10 PM UTC

jasonkostempski wrote: post #6

kristianc wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inability to find / produce / buy another Angry Birds.

My kid and I would still be playing Angry Birds and he would still be asking for the merch this Christmas if I hadn't become extremely disgusted with the constant push to make in-app purchases and buy other apps. It's before, during and after every board, every retry. I stopped playing, encouraged him to play other things and I eventually removed it from all our devices, it hasn't been missed since. They should have…

Fortunately the Humble Bundle and paid apps still exist. I don't disagree with your statement, though.

Re: Rovio Employee Negotiations Concluded

#20

Post by debacle » Thu, Dec 04, 2014, 3:30 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #18

debacle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Angry Birds had excellent design (Visually), something that has made both Rovio and King stand out. I think Rovio just tried to monetize (and merchandize) too hard, in a way not fitting the mobile model. They should have tried to focus on growing horizontally and making the Rovio brand bigger than the Angry Birds brand.

They did try that by publishing apps under the Rovio Stars brand. None of the published apps became as big as Angry Birds though, so it was moot.

That's when you maybe reconsider hiring 800 employees behind the success of a single mobile game.