Game maker Rovio has just released the newest version of Angry Birds late last month, and upon its launch, the game has been reported to cop millions of purchases. And for a while it seemed as if Angry Birds and Rovio will be back to their feet. As it turns out, the Finland-based game maker has released a forecast of its earnings, which it predicted will fall for a third consecutive year.
A Reuters report said that as a result of the declining profit, Rovio plans to cut down its workforce by thirty-nine percent. This is to reduce costs, and it is a bid to improve the company's situation, which has been failing since other games following the original Angry Birds were unable to nab high sales. Angry Birds is the top paid mobile game of all time, and fifteen other games have sprung from it, all of which have not been hit.
The Finnish game company has seen a 9 percent decrease of its revenues last year, putting Rovio's figures at 158 million euros. Operating profit has crashed by 73 percent, falling to 10 million euros. The figures are expected to fall in the following years, and Rovio is planning to cut down about 260 job positions in its workforce. Last year, the company already cut down employment by more than 150 positions.
The upcoming Angry Birds Movie, which is due for release in May next year, is Rovio's latest bet to increase its dwindling profits. Angry Birds 2 has been released on July 30, and it has been reported to be downloaded 10 million times within three days of its release. As of this writing, Rovio claims that Angry Birds, a paid game, has been downloaded for over 50 million times already.
The game has recently released a version for iOS. Rovio can still pin its hopes on Angry Birds, at least for now. Game analyst Steve Bailey says of the situation, "It acknowledges their (Rovio's) failures... It is a gloomy near future for the company, but restructuring makes them more agile and could provide new success stories." Hopefully, the latest from Angry Birds will be success stories.
