Angry Birds developer to lose 130 staff
Rovio has revealed that it is in the process of laying off 130 employees, a figure that makes up 16% of the company’s workforce, as it looks to refocus on its most important businesses. According to chief executive Mikael Hed the company hired more staff than necessary due to forecasted growth being slower than expected. “We are an entrepreneurial company and have been exploring multiple areas. We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than have materialised,” said Hed. “As a result, we announced today that we plan to simplify our organisation around our three key businesses with the highest growth potential: games, media, and consumer products.” The news follows revelations from earlier in the week that Angry Birds has lost more than 60 million players since 2012. At its highpoint the franchise had 263 million active players but has seen that number dwindle in recent months, although the game series is still one of the most popular in the world with more 2 billion downloads across