Although Electronic Arts plans to purchase PopCap games for a whopping $1.3 billion later this year, Rovio Mobile — the developer studio behind Angry birds — says it values itself “north” of that figure.
Ville Heijari, Rovio’s Vice President of Franchise Development, revealed that multiple interested companies have made attempts to negotiate. “I wouldn’t say [EA] has approached us with any offer — obviously we’ve discussed with many different companies,” Heijari explained.
“About a year ago, in the summer of 2010, Angry Birds was already quite successful,” the Vice President continued. “At that point it started to look like a really, really feasible and desirable IP. So we had a lot of enquiries from many, many different parties. But we’ve had an overall strategic goal of growing this company and moving into different areas of business beyond games. I don’t think there’s ever been a really relevant discussion of whether somebody is going to buy us.”
How much will interested companies have to shell out if they want to get in on the Angry Birds action? “The valuation from our point of view is somewhere, I dunno, maybe north of PopCap.”
Electronic Arts and PopCap announced their $1.3 billion deal on Wednesday. The publishing giant owns mobile publisher Chillingo, social gaming company PlayFish, and now PopCap Games. Could Rovio Mobile be next?