Rovio

Rovio

Basic information
Founded	2003
Type	Private
Industry	Entertainment
Official website	https://rovio.com/

Rovio Entertainment Corporation (simplified to Rovio) is a Finnish mobile game developer and publisher founded in 2003 as "Relude". The company would later rebrand to "Rovio" in 2005. In April 2023, Rovio was in talks with SEGA to be acquired by the Japanese gaming company, with the deal concluding in August.

Delisting of games

In 2019, a majority of the Angry Birds games made from 2009-2014 were delisted from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Originally, the delistings were for "testing purposes". The updated reasoning from Rovio was due to "changing devices and marketplace requirements". This unexpected delisting caused fans of the series to utilize the "#BringBack2012" hashtag on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In November 2021, a remake of the original Angry Birds game titled "Rovio Classics: Angry Birds" was in the works. This version was a paid title and removed third party advertisements from the game. In 2023, the game was delisted from the Google Play store and renamed to "Red's First Flight" on the Apple App Store due to "the game's impact on [its] wider games portfolio."

These actions and justifications are further put into question as 2-3 years into the sale of Angry Birds Trilogy, the publisher Activision pulled the sale of the game and downloadable content (DLC) from other platforms, specifically Xbox 360/One and the Sony PlayStation 3/4 due to licensing issues with Rovio. Another instance was with the Angry Birds Space PC port on the Steam store, as the game has been delisted for many years.

Results of Delisting of Games

Depending on the title, these games will either have no capability of receiving new installs, specifically only seen with the mobile releases, or merely being incapable of being newly purchased, such as the console and PC ports. Consumers who have previously bought or installed the games are still able to redownload their games. Consumers who have redownloaded or installed these games before delisting and never uninstalled them should continue to retain access to their games. However, it is plausible and historically has happened for certain delisted titles to become permanently incapable of being run. Releases such as Angry Birds GO! depend on access to a server just to run matches and access crucial assets to launch the game. Some titles such as Angry Birds Epic store and access their score assets exclusively in Rovio's servers. Rovio keeps Angry Birds Epic's servers alive to this day, even though the game has been delisted for years by now, but in an event of the servers shutting down it would leave Angry Birds Epic in a state incapable of being run ever again.

Additionally, older installs may also just stop functioning, since operating system updates can remove programming libraries that games depend on, so for example, a consumer may not be capable of transferring their install of Angry Birds Rio from their device running Android 3 to one running Android 10 or later. PC ports are also not immune to this problem either since Windows 11's compatibility features are diminishing, so access may soon only be accessible to tech-savvy consumers.

Implications

Rovio's recent pattern has involved integrating micro-transactions and "rewarded video" advertisements within their releases. While the original Angry Birds titles were later updated to include in-app purchases and advertisements, Rovio Classics: Angry Birds had a single $0.99 purchase for 390 levels. The delisting of the original games and modern paid versions show the importance of preservation and value in mobile games and how both aspects are lacking in the current day.

Forced arbitration

On February 5, 2025, players of the game Angry Birds 2 were treated with a popup message mentioning the changes made to the terms of service that would "resolve disputes in arbitration". Users were only met with two options: agree to the updated terms or view the changed terms. This is known as forced arbitration and is made so affected users cannot join class action lawsuits, but rather settle in arbitration court where a third party determines the outcome rather than a jury. This is proven with the new line, "THIS AGREEMENT MEANS THAT YOU AND ROVIO AGREE TO NOT HAVE SUCH CLAIMS RESOLVED IN A TRIAL BY A JUDGE OR JURY."