Happy Pride! A recap of our global celebrations in 2024.

Even though it’s August, we’re still celebrating Pride since we have studios in locations that just wrapped up their local Pride festivities like Stockholm, Montreal and Copenhagen.

Why is Pride important to us at Rovio? Our ambition is to tap into the uniqueness of every Rovian that enables them to perform at their full potential so we can make the best games that resonate with our diverse audience. This of course includes LGBTQIA+ employees. In our DEI survey, 11% responded that they are LGBTQIA+ and the number is likely higher since this is self reported data. And while LGBTQIA+ inclusion is a year-round thing, we love taking the opportunity to leverage annual Pride events for celebration, education and creativity.

This year, our Pride efforts were bigger than ever with a slate of activities including in-game and social media activations, internal & external guest speakers and various learning opportunities. Below are some of the highlights.

Games have the power to shape perceptions, challenge biases, and inspire change and we as Rovio have the responsibility to ensure that our games reflect the diversity of our players. Building on what we started last year, we focused on raising awareness about the diversity within the LGBTQIA+ community. In a time when some brands shy away from supporting Pride due to fear of backlash, this was an important milestone for us. In our Angry Birds 2 game, we ran an in-game event showcasing various Pride flags. In our Angry Birds social media channels, we featured one Pride flag per post along with text explaining what the flag represents. It gave us lots of joy receiving comments like, “One of the few big accounts I know that’s actually educating during pride month🔥”

Our Pride efforts would not have happened without input from, and close collaboration with, our LGBTQIA+ Rovians that are part of our DEI working group. They led the way in creating and delivering LGBTQIA+ inclusion training sessions including a talk to share the lived experiences of trans and non-binary Rovians. It was incredible to see the impact of sharing personal stories and a good reminder that data alone can’t always create change. One Rovian shared, “I felt the most powerful part for me at least was listening to personal experience and feelings, because it makes it much more real and tangible than more theoretical conversations.”

One of the key learnings from last year was the critical role that leaders play in DEI. With that in mind, our Pride efforts were discussed as a Leadership Team agenda months in advance so there is cross-functional alignment and commitment among senior executives. Recognizing the importance of ensuring that leadership commitment is visible, our senior executives published video messages in celebration of Pride. In addition, we equipped our supervisors with a guide to support them in having nuanced conversations with their team members if needed given the diverse cultural and religious backgrounds of our employees.

We invited an external speaker, Aino Kinnunen, Player Experience Lead from Trailmix, who talked about LGBTQIA+ representation and monetization in their game “Love & Pies”. We also rolled out LGBTQIA+ Inclusion Trainings tailored to senior executives and game teams. It was encouraging to see that 100% of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I feel motivated to apply what I learned.” We also ventured beyond the formal classroom training by running LGBTQIA+ Quiz on TV monitors in the Espoo HQ throughout June to encourage bite-sized learning.

While we celebrated Pride globally, participating offices outside our Finland HQ also hosted their own local celebrations. This year, we provided a Pride Toolkit so each office has additional resources and budget. Also, now that we are part of the SEGA group, we published internal blog posts to share how Pride is celebrated in London by our SEGA Europe colleagues and in Tokyo by our SEGA SAMMY colleagues.