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Rovio reveals even more new games in the pipeline

Angry Birds could move down the pecking order in 2012

Rovio reveals even more new games in the pipeline
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We already know that Rovio's next game will be Amazing Alex, after the Angry Birds studio swooped for the relevant IP in May.

But it seems Rovio has even more new titles up its sleeve, with Ville Heijari, Rovio's vice president of franchise development, telling CNN: "Oh yes, we have projects in the pipeline. But nothing we can announce just yet".

"Still this year we will see more Rovio games," Heijari continued. "I can't really talk too much about them at this point."

Angry Birds content has driven over a billion downloads, with Rovio reporting revenues of $106 million in 2011. But rather than gambling on new titles, the Finnish firm has so far concentrated on maximising earnings from Angry Birds via everything from fluffy toys and Angry Birds-branded clothing to a TV show and a theme park.

Big in Finland

Rovio certainly has the resources to branch out into new content. From a nadir of 12 employees when Angry Birds entered development in 2009 – down from the 60 it employed before the bottom fell out of the Java games market – Heijari revealed there are now 350 people on the payroll.

He said the challenge of scaling up from a dozen developers to today's entertainment powerhouse was another reason for the lack of new games.

"We have been hiring and building teams," said Heijari. "We are building more efficient units to produce more games. We haven't really wanted to rush the market or flood it with too many games."

He said that the success of Angry Birds had enabled Rovio to reinvent itself.

"We do games, we do animations, we do our own merchandise, we work with licensers to create more merchandise, and we have sort of accomplished all these things ourselves. We already see ourselves as an entertainment company rather than a games studio."

[Source: CNN]