Exclusive: Rovio turns publisher as studio opens doors to third parties

Over the years, there have been plenty of rumours that Angry Birds developer Rovio will move into publishing.

Certainly, sources confirmed that it was negotiating with various developers in 2011, but nothing ever came of that initiative.

Now, however, it's been confirmed that Tiny Thief from Spanish developer 5 Ants has been signed up by Rovio.

The 2D sneaky puzzler has a May release date pencilled in.

Smart moves

The news follows industry chatter late in 2012 that Rovio was again talking to a wide range of developers, looking for content to publish.

Then, our sources couldn't confirm any signed titles.

Of course, given its status as the world's most popular games company - in December its games had 263 million monthly active users - a move into publishing makes complete sense for Rovio.

It has a huge audience of people who love its games, so assuming it can select equally high quality titles to Angry Birds, there's a massive potential to get them engaged in new content and characters.