10.35.50 AM Rovio Layoffs Prove Mobile Gaming Is an Industry of One-Hit Wonders | |
Rovio Layoffs Prove Mobile Gaming Is an Industry of One-Hit Wonders courtesy Rovio Entertainment
Mobile games are sort of like the Lou Bega of the tech industry.Sure, “Mambo No. 5” was an international hit in its day, but then the Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out″ came out, and the rest of us forgot all about Angela, Pamela, Sandra, and Rita.1 Today, both onetime chart toppers have been relegated to the songbooks of uninspired wedding bands. And so it goes with mobile games. Over the years, we’ve seen one one-hit wonder get replaced by the next. Rovio is only the most recent example.On Thursday, the company announced it will be cutting 130 employees—or 16 percent of its workforce—in an effort to “simplify.” Of course, “simplifying” is basically a fancy way of saying the Finnish company is downsizing now that its hit game Angry Birds has been overtaken by newer, fresher games like Candy Crushand Clash of Clans.In a statement announcing the news, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed indicated as much, writing: “We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than have materialized.” | |
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