Finnish smartphone game developer Rovio who is hoping to cash in on the 3D movie project on its bird franchise helping it return to growth, after a 73 per cent profit drop gave the latest sign that its mainstay Angry Birds brand is losing appeal.
Angry Birds is not only limited to mobile games but has been licensed to toys, clothing and sweets, but those too have not seen the success once the game-maker once commanded.
Revenue from mobile games grew 16 per cent to 110.7 million on the back of new offerings, but the overall sales fell 9 per cent last year to 158.3 million euros ($169 million) from 173.5 million euros.
Operating profit saw a drop from 10 million euros from 36.5 million.
“2014 results show that steps in the game portfolio, free-to-play competency building, and advertising are going in the right direction. I am confident that with new simplified organisation and clearer vision, we will be back to the path of growth in 2015,” said Rovio CEO Pekka Rantala.
Rovio, whose aiming to become an entertainment brand like Walt Disney, has also expanded Angry Birds into a spin-off TV series and is backing an animated movie set to premiere in May 2016.
Pekka said the production cost of the Angry Birds movie will be about $80 million, and marketing costs, which will be partly paid by Sony Entertainment, would total more than the production budget.
Meanwhile, the company is striving to build new characters to be expanded into new games, consumer products and animations, Pekka said.
Rovio’s transition from paid games to freely available mobile games, where revenue comes from in-game purchases and advertising has been slow which has hit the company badly.
“We are still in transition, we have launched free-to-play games but there is room to improve the monetising in this area,” Pekka said.