Angry Birds developer/creator Rovio is about to cut hundreds of jobs from its once bustling workforce. The company previously dropped 110 jobs late last year before the holidays and is now reportedly looking to send another 260 employees packing.
The once dominate force in the mobile app space, Rovio's flagship Angry Birds franchise starting to lose its stranglehold over our smartphones and tablets some time ago. But after releasing Angry Birds 2 just recently, it seemed as though the company would at least rise to the top of the charts like it had previously. While the game has already been dowloaded close to 50 million times in about a month, it seems the business model for the free-to-play title isn't bringing in the numbers the company hoped for.
While Angry Birds 2 quickly hit the top of the download charts in both the US and China (among other countries), it is its place on the top grossing iOS releases that is somewhat underwhelming. While hitting the 42nd top grossing game in the US certainly isn't easy, thats not the kind of response a Rovio Angry Birds game is used to. Game's like Candy Crush and Clash of Clans have been at the top of this list for months.
With around 430 employees still remaining, spread across studios all over the world (London, New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai and many more), 42nd place just isn't good enough for this barely indie studio. Nonetheless, the loads of Angry Birds merch still does quite well at retail (from now anyway) and the May 2016 launch date for the Angry Birds film is still in full effect. Rovio said the recent job cuts have nothing to do with individuals working on the film project in North America.
While the fate of the company is still somewhat up in the air, only time will tell. It's hard to imagine a studio once as important as Rovio now seemingly depending on what looks like a film that could go either way to regain its prominence.