Rovio Entertainment, creator of Angry Birds, saw its consumer product licensing revenues fall from €71.3 million in 2013 to €41.4 million in 2014, according to company financial reports. Disappointing Angry Birds’ licensed goods sales took down not only Rovio but the entire video games/interactive/online property type category, which fell 4% in U.S. and Canada, according to TLL’s Annual Business Licensing Survey.
With just $574 million in sales, video games is the smallest sector and Angry Birds is pretty much the whole category. “Take Angry Birds out of the equation and the segment would have actually increased in 2014 thanks to licensed sales of call of Duty (Activision), Halo and Minecraft (Microsoft) merchandise,” notes one licensing consultant.