Rovio closes its Copenhagen studio and leaves Denmark after Sonic Blitz cancellation

Rovio, the Finnish developer of Angry Birds that has been owned by Sega since 2023, is closing its Copenhagen studio and ending its work in Denmark. The reason is the cancellation of the mobile game Sonic Blitz. A representative of Rovio confirmed the closure to Mobilegamer.biz.

The company’s statement says that “following the redundancy process, Rovio will cease all of its operations in Denmark”. The process has not been completed yet, so the exact number of layoffs has not been named — all that is known is that “around 20 employees” worked on Sonic Blitz. To those who cannot be moved to other projects within Rovio, the company promises a comprehensive transition support package, including help with finding a job and support for employee wellbeing. Rovio calls the decision “extremely difficult” and acknowledges its impact on the team, pointing to the current difficulties in the games industry.

Retention did not reach the expected level

Sonic Blitz was a hybrid of a runner and a collectible card game for mobile devices. According to Sega West chief operating officer and Rovio CEO Alex Pelletier-Normand, retention did not reach the expected level: the studio needs to “see people engaging with the game over a long period of time”.

Earlier this year Sega had already admitted that working together with Rovio delivered less than expected. “I still believe that there is a way to reach more players on mobile with Sonic, but it turned out to be much harder than both Sega and Rovio thought,” Pelletier-Normand said. According to him, the company is proud of the team and of the result, “but it did not work out”.

What has happened to Rovio since the Sega acquisition

Sega completed its purchase of Rovio in mid-August 2023. Four months later its subsidiary Studio Lumi was shut down. In April 2024 Rovio shut down its mobile game based on the Moomins. In October last year the company laid off 36 employees, explaining it by an internal reorganization and a “coming closer” to Sega. The closure of the Copenhagen studio continues this chain: in three years under Sega’s management the company has lost a subsidiary studio, shut down a mobile project, gone through layoffs and is now winding down its work in Denmark.

Why mobile Sonic turned out to be harder than it seemed

At the time, the purchase of Rovio was presented as a way to gain expertise in mobile development and to move Sega’s major franchises there. Sonic Blitz was a practical test of that logic and, judging by the outcome, it was not confirmed. The point is probably not only the specific mechanics: the market of mobile live-service games long ago stopped being a place where a strong brand automatically delivers an audience. Acquisition costs are rising, competition is for the player’s time rather than for the download, and a recognizable character on its own does not compensate for a weak retention loop.

For professionals, a practical conclusion probably follows from this: teams on live-service mobile projects are judged by metrics earlier and earlier, and the decision to shut down is taken faster — sometimes together with the closure of the office rather than with moving people to the next project. Against the backdrop of such decisions, sites occupied by a single product look the most vulnerable.

If the trend continues, publishers that bought up mobile developers in order to bring major franchises to smartphones will probably keep revising those plans, concentrating production around services that already work. For artists, modelers, animators and technical specialists this most likely means that the mobile development market will remain an employer’s market in the near future, and that vacancies will shift towards teams supporting long-running projects rather than towards new launches.

What is behind the closure of the Copenhagen studio: miscalculations by Sega’s management, a cooling mobile market, a weak bet on Sonic?