Angry Birds maker Rovio wants to make Sonic – and Sega – take flight on mobile.
Rovio’s strategy VP Timo Rahkonen has told us that first, the Finnish firm is helping Sega Tokyo launch Sonic Rumble this winter. Meanwhile, Rovio Copenhagen continues work on a brand new Sonic mobile game, and after that, Rovio plans to look at building games around Sega’s other IP.
At Roviocon last month, Rahkonen told us that Rovio’s debut Sonic game has been in the works “for quite some time”.
It is being made at Rovio Copenhagen, a studio once known as Darkfire Games and formed by several former IO Interactive staffers. It was acquired by Rovio in 2020, having previously launched action-RPG Darkfire Heroes. “What we want to do is help to grow the Sonic brand and establish it as a mobile gaming brand,” said Rahkonen.
“Sonic is really popular on PC and console, and it is existing on mobile, but from the money perspective, it’s non-existent…there’s a huge audience base, they still love to play those runner games and they get a lot of downloads, like when the previous Sonic movie launched. But they cannot monetize that audience.”
Later, Rahkonen added: “When we look at, for example, the IP portfolio Sega has, they have hundreds of IPs…we suggested that we start with Sonic because that’s the most popular brand, especially in the Western markets, which is our expertise. Let’s try to build a portfolio of successful Sonic mobile titles, but, you know, in different genres, for different target audiences.”
Rahkonen also confirmed it is looking into Sega’s treasure trove of retro IP to see what else has potential. “We have access to their IP portfolio,” he said. “It’s kind of like, what makes sense? Like, what kind of business case you can make, do you have the capacity? Is it something that you can develop, or is it something you can just maybe help with the publishing and the go-to-market and the marketing?”
But first, there’s Sonic Rumble. Slated for global launch ‘this winter’, the title is currently in soft launch and is developed by Sega Tokyo. But given Rovio’s expertise in mobile and western markets, it is helping the Japanese giant launch its Sonic-themed party platformer.
“We have also been kind of educating Sega that if you want to have a really long-lasting game, then you need to have the KPIs there as well,” Rahkonen said. “And make sure that there’s enough features, enough content in the game. We are learning from them and they are learning from us.”
Rovio started working with Sega on Sonic Rumble last autumn, says Rahkonen, when the title was identified as one of the newly-combined firms’ “key synergy projects”.
“They have pretty big team, compared to a Rovio team – bigger than any of our game teams actually,” says Rahkonen. “And our job is to be in charge of ‘go to market’ – that means user acquisition, marketing, influencer marketing and community management for the game.”
Rovio is also helping Sega with the task of “getting Apple and Google excited” about the Rumble launch and smoothing out the UI for Western players, because as Rahkonen notes, while the Sonic brand is very much made in Japan, its popularity mainly lies in the west.
“The game team is Japanese but they are developing something basically for the Americans and this was something new for them,” he added. “So that’s why we have been helping them.”
