Rovio Entertainment is a Finnish game development studio founded in 2003 and best known for its Angry Birds franchise. The games in which players fling birds at pigs have been downloaded over four billion times and are famous around the world.
Rovio’s success started with the launch of the original Angry Birds in 2009, which quickly became a global phenomenon. The company then followed up with multiple sequels, spin-offs, and merchandise to cement its status in the mainstream. It now has offices around the world, with one of its key locations in Montreal.
Rovio Entertainment Boosted the Promising Finnish Gaming Industry
Rovio Entertainment’s rise to prominence throughout the 2010s inspired other developers in Finland to try to follow in its footsteps. The northern European nation now has a flourishing gaming sector, with several other big brands operating there. Some of these include Supercell, Remedy Entertainment, and Next Games. The studios are best known for Clash of Clans, Max Payne, and The Walking Dead: Our World respectively.
Part of the reason why Finland is such a hotbed for development talent is that there’s a bustling gaming scene there. According to data from Newzoo, there are 2.8 million gamers in Finland out of its population of 5.5 million people. This means that game studios can easily market their offerings to people locally first.
The fact that brand-new gaming sites are cropping up in 2023 highlights how Finland is still ripe for growth. Norppa Casino, for instance, first opened to players in 2022 and is already highly competitive in the saturated online gambling sphere. This is underlined by the way it’s able to offer a 100 percent deposit match to new players.
Moving to Montreal Boosted the Company’s Fortunes
Getting started in Finland is a good way for new developers to gain recognition. But when it comes to scaling their operations, they need to flock to other gaming hotspots around the world that can help with that. Montreal is well-known to be one of the most thriving cities in North America for game companies, and Rovio Entertainment opted to set up offices there soon after it had started to grow too big for its Finnish headquarters alone.
There are various reasons why the Montreal move made sense for Rovio, and why numerous other game developers set up shop there as well. One of the most important factors is that the Quebec government offers tax credits and financial incentives to game studios in the province. Montreal is also home to an accomplished workforce of programmers, as the colleges and universities in the city have a great focus on these skills. That means that game studios can easily find the experts they need to boost their operations to the next level.
It was recently reported by Reuters that Rovio could be sold to Playtika for $738 million. This figure shows just how far the company has come since its modest beginnings in the mid-2000s. The story of Rovio’s success is one that many companies would love to replicate, and its rise to the top was doubtlessly propelled by its move to Canada.
