Half of Rovio’s annual profit in the near future will come from merchandising, as well as drinks and food “based on motives,” the Finnish company said.
While many gaming companies refuse everything, one way or another connected with physical media (boxes, disks. manuals), Rovio is trying to increase its presence in the real world. Already, 30% of the company’s sales are accounted for by real goods (T-shirts, sweets, books). And, apparently, the company is not going to stop there.
“In a few years, more than half of our business will come from merchandising,” Peter Vesterbaka, the company’s marketing director, said at the Open Mobile Summit last Thursday.
This does not mean that the company is going to leave the mobile market. Conversely. Only this year we saw as many as four original Rovio projects. It’s just that now the company’s task is to produce products that will encourage users to play and vice versa, to produce games that will encourage users to purchase products with the symbols of these games.
Ideally, Vesterbak’s task, as he stated in his interview with AllThingsD, sees that drinks and food under the Angry Birds brand are no less popular than Coca-Cola.