‘Angry Birds’ company is about to be sold for $1B to Sega | Hacker News Reader

‘Angry Birds’ company is about to be sold for $1B to Sega

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146 pointsachow100 comments

I actually downloaded the original Angry Birds a few weeks ago, just for a little nostalgia trip. They've changed it & completely ruined it with ads and other crap. Deleted it after a few minutes. Was really disappointed. I Paid for the game originally. That's the game I want to play. Utter joke that this nonsense ever became acceptable.

Is it the actual original Angry Birds? (Now renamed "Red's First Flight" or something like that)

IIRC they did this renaming switcheroo to get people into the freemium+ads-supported version. The original was undercutting their new monetization.

(Which don't get me wrong, is exceedingly scummy already. "The original was undercutting their new monetization", AKA people prefer to not have ads and annoying freemium if they know the game is solid)

Apple Arcade still has a nice Angry Birds version with zero ads or gambling mechanics or any other nonsense.

If it was not for Apple Arcade, I probably would restrict my kids to playing Kerbal Space Program or the few games I know that do not have all that garbage.

Apple Arcade is perfect for kids, you can let them install any game from there and you can be a 100% sure there's no predatory in-app purchases, subscriptions or ads.

The Netflix games are trying the same approach. Basically they have games on the app stores but you can't play them without an active Netflix subscription.

Is there something like this for Android?

There's Google Play Pass.

This made me look to see if I could find the original Angry Birds in my App Store purchase history. It's there, but its been renamed "AB Classic" – I couldn't find it by searching, so I had to scroll a loooong way down the list of apps until I found it near the bottom. Its position in the list was accompanied by other such classics as Flight Control, Doodle Jump and geoDefense, none of which have (or had) ads. I don't install or play games on my phone anymore.

+10 for "I don't install or play games on my phone anymore."

Same here. I gave me this rule: No games on phones or private work computers, as well as no crap like Facebook. I might expand this rule to other non-productivity apps as well, since gaming on a phone is a time drainer and distractor for me.

Bonus points if you have blocked your preferred web distractions at the hosts file level. I still catch myself about once a week mindlessly logging into something while waiting for a process longer than 10 seconds to finish.

"Nuh-uh." - Hosts file

https://www.howtogeek.com/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-yo...

Forgot about this one. Nice tip.

this can be done with NetGuard (Android) or apps like AdGuard Pro (iOs). Both function as VPNs and allow DNS filtering (load custom host lists).

Essential software and should be the first app to be installed on a device.

I’ve started to mainly focus on games that have Ana drive community years after release - often indicated by an open source implementation of the engine. Thing the various source ports of Doom, OpenWM, OpenTTD, etc.

RIP Flight Control. I miss that game a lot.

Me too. It was so so good.

> AB Classic

Wow. Couldn't even leave the words Angry Birds in the title.

You need SEO for this crap.

Search engine obfuscation.

Netflix's games have no ads and have no annoying pop-ups... it's the only stuff I download for my kids to play with. Everything else is cluttered with too much junk for my liking.

On iOS Apple Arcade is pretty good also. No ads or other nonsense.

> Flight Control

I've yet to find a good substitute for this game. Nothing else is paced quite right.

Old classics are being converted into shitty experiences... mobile gaming is turning bad. It is just terrible now to play on mobile

It sounds like a boiling frog problem: they could only monetize the original idea so much and struggled to come up with original ideas in mobile games. So all they could do is just try harder to milk the original idea.

Apparently, there's still a billion dollars worth of merch and micro transactions that can still be milked.

>> there's still a billion dollars worth of merch

Our family has a rather nice Angry Birds carry-on suitcase. I have to wonder what it will be worth in twenty years.

Is it a game mercy suitcase or a movie tie in? That could change the outcome, as future value is roughly tied to nostalgia + rarity.

Same! I couldn't even find the apk of the old version I bought back in 2012. The old version was a decent little mobile game. This? Advertisements, popups, DLC reminders, and you can't play a round or two without annoying interruption.

I'd pay twice for the game if I could get the old vanilla experience back. I played on Wii, and it's too laggy to enjoy.

Uh huh, maybe you also want to play Tiny Thief that you paid for? When you buy pizza, do you also expect it to be edible after 10 years?

</s> // <-- I have noticed adding this reduces errors

Nine years ago the guy who made "Crush the Castle" did an ama on Reddit and said it was "kind of flattering" that Angry Birds completely ripped off his game and people enjoyed playing it. I wonder if he still feels the same way.

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1iu1ih/i_am_joey_betz...

Way back in the day I had a flash games website. If I remember correctly there was another game like Crush the Castle that actually came first, though I can’t remember the name now.

Anyways, it’s not like Angry Birds didn’t refine the formula. The slingshot mechanic was better for touch screens, the different birds types, and making the art cutesy.

> and making the art cutesy.

I can't find it but recall reading somewhere that the original "pitch" for angry birds was just a bunch of bird sketches submitted to a company-internal brainstorming session. Then they tacked on the gameplay etc. afterwards.

That's how everything works. Literally every CRPG (and every crappy mobile game with an XP/level mechanic) owes an enormous debt to Dungeons & Dragons.

WotC is a big company, and D&D is bigger than it's ever been, but like Diablo 4 is gonna net more profit than D&D makes in a decade.

> hat's how everything works. Literally every CRPG (and every crappy mobile game with an XP/level mechanic) owes an enormous debt to Dungeons & Dragons

And they owe almost everything to the lore from Tolkien's middle-earth.

And Tolkein would be the first to acknowledge all the mythology he borrowed from and was inspired by...

And mythology would like to thank the cavemen for their compelling cave paintings and campfire stories, which laid the groundwork for millennia of creative storytelling. Without those early artists, who knows where we'd be? Probably still trying to come up with a punchline for "Why did the mammoth cross the glacier?"

Yeah almost everything is iterative.

WotC is more like SEGA in this scenario though because they only bought out D&D.

So, what, D&D owns fantasy or something? Ha ha.... no.

I don't recall Diablo ever messing about with THAC0 or D&D specific rules. Cribbing "level up" mechanics is about the same level as music sampling the amen break. An enormous debt might be owed, sure, but the concept is a public good now and said debt is uncollectable.

> owes an enormous debt to Dungeons & Dragons.

And D&D owes to the wargames that preceded it.

Nothing exists in a vacuum.

I mean the dynamics of the game alone didn't create the $1B valuation, it was also the execution around marketing, brand deals, movies, etc

Wordle sold for ~3M, and it had a user base.

That’s a more specific number than I’ve seen before, are you extrapolating off of the “low seven figures” mentioned in the press releases or was a more specific number released?

I was working off "low seven figures." I suppose that really means between $1M and $3M.

I'd like to open the floor, because many of us are coding away at a game engine someplace.

What do you do, if you write a 2d physics library, and someone makes a popular game. How do you retro-actively acquire the licensing?

Prudent thing is I guess to take the time to get your IP in order before launch. But it's extra difficult for cash strapped solo indies ;)

'my idea was stolen' pretty much describes the past 40 years of tech, from the msdos days

Because ideas aren’t owned or valuable.

They are still racking in the revenue, and have a solid business, despite the Angry Birds dependency. Per their Q4'22 filing [1], they had 1B in downloads and positive operating cash flow. Their 2022 revenue from Angry Birds is also the highest year since it launched. Their market cap is currently at 645M, so they're exiting at a premium.

[1] https://investors.rovio.com/sites/rovio-ir-v2/files/2023-04/...

Perhaps I am reading the report incorrectly, but isn't $6bln the total IAP market revenue?

(Never mind, I see you corrected your post)

Yes, corrected. Thanks ;)

I think I'm more surprised that Sega even has $1B to spend...

They made some of it from the Sonic movies, both of which I personally enjoyed. Jim Carrey plays a legendary villain.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2021/11/07/sega-talks-s...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2022/04/28/box-o...

A third movie is on the way.

I definitely planned on watching both of these and just completely forgot about them. They should just use this money on a Dreamcast 2 instead!

What would Dreamcast 2 bring for users or Sega?

On the consumer side, I can only imagine it would be yet another x86 based console, because what else is there to do? Another samey controller, because once you add a right analog stick, and left and right bumpers and a home button, what do you have left to differentiate on? Can't even put the cable on the wrong side anymore. I guess you could have a nicer screen and just build it into the controller, but that was hardly used last time.

On Sega's side, they're going to do all that R&D to make the same thing as everyone else and then how are they going to make the money back? Not on first party game sales. Third party sales will be hard too, unless they have some really strong pitch, but at this point, they're really a new entrant, so who's going to port to the new guy's platform, unless it's so amazing and underpriced that everyone will want to buy it.

Might be nice if they can figure out how to make a mini-dreamcast though. Depends on how many games they can get licensees to sign up for though, I guess.

I won't be surprised if they used the Angry Birds IP to sell another movie

Sonic vs Angry Birds?

If Angry Birds is worth $1 Billion dollars, George Lucas sold Star Wars for an absolute pittance at $4 Billion.

Yes, that’s pretty much an agreed upon fact. Disney already made the money back through the three main films alone.

Not to be pedantic, but the net profit =/= revenue from the movies. Even though the Sequel Trilogy was a financial success, the net revenue was definitely lower than 5-6Bn the movies earned.

Here's a source https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2023/03/01/reveale...

But once you factor in toys for the movies and shows (and other merch), DVD and Bluray sales,video games units sold and microtransactions, theme park tickets, increased subscriptions to Disney+ for marquee shows like the Mandalorian etc. it probably has been made back, probably with a multiplier.

Lots of indies keep close track of Disney. Many of them have a good understanding of the cost structures and revenue splits, and every time somebody does a breakdown of the numbers, Disney is bleeding red ink with the Lucasfilm acquisition. It's a complete boondoggle for Disney.

This is just one example breakdown of the numbers:

https://practicaleconomics.org/category/star-wars/

We also know that Disney+ is hemorrhaging tons of money. Disney reported something like a $1.1 billion loss in 2003-q1, and $1.5 billion loss the previous quarter. This is like Disney sinking one of their cruise liners every quarter. Neilsen streaming ratings have shown Star Wars shows have completely fallen off and have failed keep Disney+ competitive.

There are also tons of stories reported about how the Star Wars toys have failed to sell, and retailers were fire selling everything trying to get rid of the merchandise.

>There are also tons of stories reported about how the Star Wars toys have failed to sell, and retailers were fire selling everything trying to get rid of the merchandise.

This is interesting. Is this a US only phenomenon? I understand that the US is the biggest market for Star Wars. But if true, this is quite fascinating since I thought Baby Yoda toys and lightsabers are super popular gifts, despite the popularity of super hero toys.

I don't know about outside the US, but the impression I have is, Star Wars toys have mostly been a universal bust, especially of the items that are from new Star Wars and not the original. You can find a lot of info if you search about Rose Tico toys. The Tico toys aren't necessarily the worst (e.g. Admiral Holdo toys), but fans/critics like to use the Tico toy as demonstration of how badly Disney has miscalculated their Star Wars strategy.

Baby Yoda toys were an exception to the rule. But even Baby Yoda toys have their own story of missteps in this saga. Disney was caught completely flat-footed by the success of Baby Yoda and did not have any toys ready to go at the launch of The Mandalorian. Disney was overcompensating for the toy disaster after all the movies, (which also made their toy make partners very unhappy). (I think Hasbro is one of the main suppliers.) Then when Baby Yoda was a surprise hit, and fans were going to things like CafePress out of desperation for anything, Disney desperately scrambled to get anything out as fast as possible. If I recall, they had to bypass their normal partner Hasbro and go to Mattel just to get something to market fast. This is almost unheard of.

Baby Yoda is the only merch hit they have, but there are now retailer signs showing demand saturation. And for Star Wars fans who follow all the shows, like The Mandalorian, people are saying it looks like Baby Yoda was supposed to have left the show, completing his arc around the end of season 2 or The Book of Boba Fett. But rumors say, Disney desperate to keep Baby Yoda in the spotlight, forced him back into the show, with rumors Baby Yoda is going to appear in a bunch of other future Star Wars shows, like the new Rey Skywalker-Palpatine show.

I also forgot to mention the The Star Wars Galactic Cruiser experience. People also keep track of open bookings in that hotel and show it is mostly empty. There are lots of estimates of how much this cost to build and what the operating expenses are (all this is very expensive), and it once again indicates this is a massive money loser for Disney.

> Lots of indies keep close track of Disney. Many of them have a good understanding of the cost structures and revenue splits

From what I have seen most of them seems to be quoting each other figures in some kind of circle jerk with very little idea about what's actually true and most of it seems more fiction than fact, especially when it comes to derivative products and merchandising.

That was very much a "get this off my hands" sale. Lucas wanted to retire from running the company, to leave the day to day to others, so he'd be free to focus on the occasional story elements inbetween caring for his new child. I reckon the price was lower than it should have been, in exchange for informal promises of letting him hang around at will. Which they did, in fairness, although they ended up simply ignoring what he'd say.

Wikipedia says Sega had about 186 million dollars worth of net income in 2020.

It's likely that parent company (Sega Sammy Holdings) is the one who is buying/financing it. Sega accounts for less than 10% of their revenue.

The theory is that Sega made bank with the Sonic movies and the Angry Birds movies were the least crap movies based on games for a LOOOONG time - the second one still has 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

A streak broken only by this year's D&D movie (90% RT + "fresh" rating)

This way Sega gets its foot in the mobile gaming door and also gets the people who made the Angry Birds movies and TV show(s) on their payroll.

>the second one still has 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Using Rotten Tomatoes as a legitimate measure of quality, you need to use the inverse value of their score.

As a developer, the best thing to say about Angry Birds is, that is put box2d on my map. I extensively used box2d within the LibGDX framework.

And yes, there is a story around not giving credit to the inventor of box2d: https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/28/creator-of-angry-birds-phy...

As a SEGA kid growing up through the 90's, I got to watch my favourite console and game maker make business decision after business decision so incredulously stupid, just - so unbelievably, shockingly daft; that one would have to assume the corporation itself was somehow a sentient - yet suicidal - entity.

From the baffling release of the 32x 'console', to the jump-start release of the Saturn (which cost them insanely valuable retail connections and meant software wasn't ready for launch) - to the shit-show that was the never-released Sonic X-Treme - SEGA seemed obsessively dedicated to making sure it made every major business decision as damaging to its existence as possible.

By the time they finally produced a frankly phenomenal offering with the Dreamcast, the industry's good will towards SEGA had all but vanished. I recall EA saying after the debacle with the Saturn they wouldn't even make games for the Dreamcast.

All these years later, that girl who grew up getting and cherishing her SEGA Genesis as a Christmas gift in 1993(4?), spending way too much time on the playground about how much better SEGA was ('there's actual blood in Mortal Kombat, though, suck that, Nintendorks!') fully expected to be using the equivalent of a Dreamcast 5, and if SEGA hadn't been frankly just so incredibly stupid, I most likely would be.

This is just a continuation of normal behavior for SEGA, another monumentally stupid decision based off all the wrong motivation and market research.

At their hight, when the popularity was near endless, they could probably have sold for many billions to some of the big players (Microsoft?).

But what do they do now? Sega must have some big revitalization plans. I'm not saying that it can't work, but I don't quite see it at this point.

Data point: I was at an AR (kind of) golf venue and they offered an Angry Birds mode (which they were really proud of). I thought it was pretty bad.

One-hit wonder?

Angry Bids

I prefer to go for the multi-hit, but the blue ones don't have enough inertia.

In all seriousness, mobile gaming is an extremely crowded market. To their credit, they capitalized on their early success and did what they could to build what appears to be a franchise. And the first movie wasn't all that bad!

Bad Piggies was one of my favorite games, ever.

Angry Birds (and its sequel) as well as Angry Birds: Star Wars were absolute hits, I think.

Bad Piggies was also fantastic.

Certainly a one-IP-hit wonder. Amazing Alex was a flop, wasn't it?

Possibly. Their annual revenue [0] seems to be peaking in the low-to-mid ~six~ nine digits.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1249220/rovio-revenue-se...

9 digits? 300m EUR in 2022.

Yep, should have had coffee before posting. Corrected and thanks!

> But what do they do now?

I mean, look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovio_Entertainment#2009%E2%80...

They have 2 released Angry Birds movies, 11 TV series, non-stop game releases for the past decade. They seem to be doing a lot of things.

Did they ever make things right with the creator of Box2D?

https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/28/creator-of-angry-birds-phy...

Your own link answers the very question you asked.

All they say is "we acknowledge it uses Box2D and we'd be happy to discuss it with the creator later". There's no follow-up, which I'm curious about too since one of the questions raised was whether Rovio would consider supporting the project.

He's been credited for Box2D in many games, including a number of Angry Birds iterations. They sit nicely along all the work on Blizzard's physics technology across all their games. https://www.mobygames.com/person/221583/erin-catto/credits/

The link has an update at the bottom from the creator (Erin Catto), there wasn't ever any drama and he was credited.

Sega is pretty notorious for bad business decisions…

How is Angry Birds worth 1B, are we in 2013 with Fruit Ninja and Temple Run?

Relevant documentary about Angry Birds and its journey to a much higher valuation, and now down to $1B: https://youtu.be/VEVLHtzFle4

Angry Birds Android App was used to bulk collect user data. https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/the-nsa-is-u...

If you do not trust this specific source, there are plenty others easy to find by search engine.

Unfortunate choice for Sega to acquire such a company.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You also don't seem to have an earlier comment here that was being downvoted.

I edited my post - better?

My earlier comment was downvoted in record time for stating the same, so I made a new post. What's the reason to have such a guideline? I suspect manipulative downvotes to silence my opinion. Otherwise, why not comment and correct my fallacies instead?

I mean it's explained pretty clearly in the second sentence.

> It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

People are here to talk about interesting topics. That you are being downvoted is not a very interesting topic to anyone but yourself. You pointing it out also isn't going to magically make the downvotes go away.

> I suspect manipulative downvotes to silence my opinion.

It takes 501 karma to unlock downvoting. People aren't here making dozens of accounts just to take away your fake internet points.

I have read plenty of threads where completely legitimate comments are downvoted to the point you cannot read them anymore, it is the same for other users' comments. This is not my personal ego trip. (and by the way, I make it a habit to always upvote those comments independent of content, just because I despise censorship through the backdoor)

The reason why it still should be allowed to talk about it is to hinder, or raise awareness of vote manipulation in the comments.

"it is boring" is not a logical explanation, but maybe that's just me.

Any copyright and/or trademark experts around? It says here that previously Sega owned Alpha Protocol trademark has expired. Does that mean anyone can just use it? I know that the setting was generic as hell, but still.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Protocol#cite_note-62

The trademark is just the name. Setting, story, characters, etc. would be covered by the copyright and unaffected by a trademark expiration.

A pity. Sega hates this game for some reason, you can't even buy it on Steam anymore.

"Some reason" might be 72/64/63 (PC/PS/XB) Metacritic scores and poor sales ("The game's slow sales contributed to Sega's lower-than-expected financial results in the three months ending on June 30, 2011")?

Very bad first impression is what this game excels at, but it gets better. In any case that's in the past and it looks like their music rights expired, that why it was pulled from Steam, not because of some special kind of malice to an old game. Situation still sucks though.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/segas-rights-as-publisher-of-a...

Great, another Finnish success company being sold for no reason to Sega of all things...

Next, Nokian Tyres gets sold to a Chinese manufacturer of shopping cart wheels.

I think cashing out might not be worst strategy with Angry Birds.

It was somewhat early with Supercell, but with Angry Birds I think getting money while possible is great idea.

oh boy, someone is laughing way to the bank... (and it's not sega)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35584583

They took investments and then didn’t know how to spend it, as you can see they spent it on crap. Maybe it the Ip was just way over valued.

Angry Birds really isn’t a very interesting game. I never understood the hype.

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