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Rovio Entertainment Ltd., previously known as Relude and Rovio Mobile, is a Finnish developer, publisher, distributor of video games and entertainment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland. The company was founded in 2003 as a mobile game development studio named ''Relude'', and was renamed to ''Rovio Mobile'' (Finnish for ''pyre'') in 2005. The company is best known for creating the ''Angry Birds'' franchise. ==History== In 2003, three students from Helsinki University of Technology (currently Aalto University School of Science), Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen, and Kim Dikert, participated in a mobile game development competition at the Assembly demo party sponsored by Nokia and HP. A victory with a real-time multiplayer game called ''King of the Cabbage World'' led the trio to set up their own company, Relude. ''King of the Cabbage World'' was sold to Sumea (now known as Sumea Studios as part of Digital Chocolate), and renamed to ''Mole War'', which became one of the first commercial real-time multiplayer mobile games. In January 2005, Relude received its first round of investment from a business angel, and the company changed its name to Rovio Mobile.〔(In the land of Angry Birds: Rovio reveals its global entertainment ambitions (photo gallery) ). 24 November 2013. Retrieved 15 Junes 2015.〕 In December 2009, Rovio released ''Angry Birds,'' its 52nd game, a puzzle game where a bird is flung using a slingshot for the iPhone; it reached No. 1 spot in the Apple App Store paid apps chart after six months, and remained charted for months after. ''Angry Birds'' has since been downloaded over 1 billion times, with paid downloads accounting for more than 25% of total downloads, making it one of the top selling games in the Apple App Store. In May 2012, Rovio announced that its game series ''Angry Birds'' had reached its one billionth download. In March 2011, Rovio raised $42 million in venture capital funding from Accel Partners, Atomico and Felicis Ventures. In July 2011, the company changed its name to Rovio Entertainment Ltd. In June 2011, the company hired David Maisel to lead their 'Angry Bird' movie production. By October 2011, Rovio purchased Kombo, a Helsinki-based animation company.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.rovio.fi/en/news/blog/76/rovio-acquires-animation-studio-kombo/ )〕 The animation studio was acquired to produce a series of short videos released in 2012. In March 2012, Rovio acquired Futuremark Game Studios, the game development division of benchmarking company Futuremark for an undisclosed sum. In July 2012, Rovio announced a distribution partnership with Activision to bring the first three ''Angry Birds'' titles to video game consoles and handhelds, in a collection named ''Angry Birds Trilogy''. The title was released on 25 September 2012 (a port for the Wii and Wii U consoles was released in 2013). On 8 November 2012, Rovio released ''Angry Birds Star Wars'', an iteration of its popular game licensed from the ''Star Wars'' original trilogy, for mobile devices and PC.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2012/10/oh-god-they-really-are-making-angry-birds-star-wars/#more-156168 )〕 Rovio partnered with Activision again to port the title to video game consoles and handhelds, with it being released on those platforms on 29 October 2013. A sequel, ''Angry Birds Star Wars II'', based on the ''Star Wars'' prequel trilogy, was released on 18 September 2013. In March 2013, Rovio launched its multi-platform ToonsTV channel starting with ''Angry Birds Toons''. As of 2013, Rovio became a video game publisher and is publishing third party games through their Rovio Stars program. In January 2014, Rovio announced that its game series ''Angry Birds'' had reached its two billionth download.〔(Angry Birds series pecks up 2 billion downloads ). January 2014. Retrieved 15 June 2015.〕 In addition, it was revealed that their flagship series, ''Angry Birds'', "leaked data" to third-party companies, perhaps even surveillance agencies like the NSA. In retaliation, anti-NSA hackers defaced Rovio's website. As of May 2014, Rovio releases its non-Angry Birds titles under a new name, Rovio LVL11.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.angrybirdsnest.com/rovios-lvl11-new-publishing-arm-announces-retry/ )〕 The first game published under this title is ''Retry''〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyrobertson/2014/05/06/retry-game-play/ )〕 and the second is ''Selfie Slam''.〔(Selfie Slam News )〕 As of June 2014, Rovio consider themselves an entertainment company, not a game company. This is reinforced by Rovio's merchandise and licensing business accounting for about half of their annual revenue of $216 million in 2013. In August 2014, Rovio announced that Mikael Hed would step down as CEO in January 2015 in favor of Pekka Rantala. Hed remains on Rovio's board and became the chairman of Rovio Animation. In December 2014, Mikael Hed laid off 110 employees after net profits halved in 2013 due to its recent games, ''Angry Birds Epic'' and ''Go!'', which have not been that successful as past games. After this move, Rovio closed its Tampere studio, moving their operations to Espoo. At the end of 2014, Rovio Entertainment suffered from a 73% decrease in profit, earning only €10 million. Chief executive Pekka Rantala later stated that the decrease is due to the poor sales of the licensed merchandise and the by-products of ''Angry Birds''. He also noted that "the company are unsatisfied over the result of our licensing business". In August 2015, Rovio Entertainment laid off 260 employees worldwide after Angry Birds toy and merchandise revenue fell by 43% during 2014. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rovio Entertainment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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