Candy Crush King sees IPO go sour as stock price heads south Mobile games firm King Digital failed to take the stock market by storm Wednesday as the firm's initial public offering (IPO) saw its stock price decline by more than 15 per cent at close of trading. The company made famous for its Candy Crush mobile game had been seeking a valuation of roughly $7bn wen it offered its shares …
"The majority of game developers have gone bankrupt over the years"
One hit wonders come along, make everyone a load of money then fickle adolescent interest moves onto the next Big Thing and the "artist" or game developer is left wondering what happened. The only difference with a listed company is that pump and dump comes into play and I suspect thats whats happened here.
"Humans are absolutely daft, as a herd, and completely incapable of learning from their predecessor's mistakes."
There's a reason religions tend to call their followers their "flock". Because they are just like sheep. Luckily for our species a small percentage of every generation rebels against the status quo - above and beyond the usual teenage routine - and often helps us advance. Or they become criminals, but the behaviours are flip sides of the same coin unfortunately.
Back on the 18th of February, they were looking to make $500 Million their IPO. I'd say they succeeded. Then today's headline is all whiney because they're seeking $7 Billion. Hmm... did someone's ego suddenly inflate?
Given that there's a backlash over their attempt to trademark "CANDY"... I'm wondering if the smart money said "pffffff".
To understand IPOs, watch a wildlife film. The most obvious example will be on your local savannah, but there are also good examples in aquatic ecosystems.
How do predators take prey from larger species? Do they gather in packs, isolate individuals from the herd, try to outrun and exhaust their prey, attack in unison, and weaken the victim by inflicting small injuries? Yes, they do all of these things. But their most successful strategy is to hunt and kill the young. They're slow, weak, dumb, and very, very tasty.
Fuck that.
Is EA even "worth" $7Bn? Hmm - if I'm reading this right they're worth $8.84Bn. Still, point still stands. EA is a very established company in this market with a proven track record spanning 25+ years.
Valve? About $2.5Bn
Take 2? $1.75Bn
Nintendo is worth about $14Bn. Are these muppets trying to say that two King Digitals make a Nintendo?
Arseholes. The lot of them.
As an indie game developer with a sense of ethics, nothing would please me more than to see this pack of thieves ruined. Hopefully this is the beginning of a rapid decline into obscurity for King.
Unfortunately, there will always be someone equally greedy willing to step in and take their place.
More hopefully their "Battle of Balaclava" moment...
"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them"
Better stop there, it sounds like the basic premise for "Cannon Fodder Saga™"
Please let one of the King board members be called Cardigan.
"Into the Valley of Death rode the King board members..."
But isn't this how the modern stock market works? The initial evaluation is speculative based (as far as I can make out) on hope because there isn't any other metric, the price falls when people doing the fast trading can't see the point, then gradually finds its "true" value over the next few weeks until a new product announcement causes a flurry of activity in which only computer mediated (and triggered) trades win and ordinary meat traders lose, until the stock is worthless?
Who knew that putting computers in charge of the trading process would be a model-breaking mistake?
If so then there will always be money and fortunes to be made.
I joined Facebook in 2007, and not too long ago I got on the Candy Crush craze too. After some introspective, I decided that Facebook is no longer as fun as it used to be, and after I reached level 500 on Candy Crush I also found it was a total waste of my time. I found that with Facebook/Candy Crush...no necessary task has been accomplished. Time has been expended, nothing more.
I quickly erased (using an automated FireFox scripts) everything on Facebook, changed my password to something gibberish, force signed out of all other Facebook logins everywhere, and Deleted my account (be careful, deactivating is NOT the same as deleting it...Google it). I tossed the gibberish password and deleted all of my Facebook and related game apps.
When people start to wake up like I did everyone will flee the ship and it will sink. I am part of this growing trend. Does anyone remember Myspace and Meebo? Mark Zuckerberg and Riccardo Zacconi should enjoy their billions while it lasts. One day these high tech sweethearts and idols will both be washed up hasbeens as they wrinkle and decay like John McAfee has.
Naturally some fools will stay with Facebook and many will lose loads of money when both IPO's crash. In the meantime I'll be doing something else meaningful with my time.
Well, their products are games with little (at best) depth. Is it any wonder that they're going to be last week's flavour of the day when (a) there's nothing to keep people using the game for months on end and (b) the vapid Yoof of Today gnerally only wants shiny, shiny and nothing more.
There are some game companies out there with one product and seem to be doing well. One example, if not the example, is CCP Games. But their offering won't fit on a phone or a fondleslab.
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