Angry Birds creator Rovio Entertainment Ltd. has just laid off almost 15 percent of its staff – some 110 workers – but has put a positive spin on the situation as it had originally planned to dump more than this number.

In a statement, Rovio said its “ workforce will be reduced by approximately 110 employees. As part of its reorganization, several positions have been opened for internal applicants. The final number of employees impacted depends on how many of these new positions are filled.”

Rovio, which is based in Finland and employs around 800 people, said it would be closing down its Tampere studio as part of its restructuring process. However, some of its staff based there would be retained and relocated to its corporate HQ in the city of Espoo.

Despite the overwhelming worldwide success of its Angry Birds game, Rovio has struggled over the last couple of years due to its failure to do anything over than create one hit fowl-flinging franchise. The company deemed it necessary to sack its CEO in August of this year in light of its poor performance, which saw profits fall by around fifty percent.

Angry Birds remains one of the most popular smartphone games around, and Rovio has expertly squeezed every last cent out of the franchise since its launch in 2009. Its launched no less than 10 follow up titles/spinoffs in the last five years, and has raked in plenty of cash from selling Angry Birds merchandise, in-game power-ups and cramming the game full of ads.

All well and good, but Rovio hasn’t achieved a whole lot else besides. Sure its built some other games, but there’s a good reason why you haven’t heard of Amazing Alex and Bad Piggies – they’re just not that good, and now Rovio seems fresh out of ideas.

That’s not to say Rovio is under threat of imminent collapse – Angry Birds is still raking in millions – but as companies like Zynga have discovered, the gaming business can be a particularly tough one to stay on top of.

photo credit: Nomadic Lass via photopin cc