Activision to buy Candy Crush developer King

Games-maker Activision Blizzard has announced it will spend US$5.9 billion to acquire King Digital Entertainment, the evil genii behind Candy Crush. Moving into mobile is the reason for the deal: Actvision CEO Bobby Kotick says, in his canned statement, that “Mobile gaming is the largest and fastest-growing opportunity for …

[Anonymous Coward]

20 bucks

Something less than twenty bucks per ave monthly unique visitor. Each. Methinks there's still overvaluation here. That's more like AOL values and we know how well that's turned out for all of their buyers.

[I can't speak to how valuable their games studio is, way out of my zone. Given the Hollywood-like churn of said production operations, it's damned difficult to hang real numbers on anything there. Which is distasteful to this number junkie.]

[Roq D. Kasba]

Fremium isn't Free

There's a South Park episode with this name, it gives quite a good breakdown of the fremium gaming model.

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with mobile games houses is that they are all one-trick ponies. Rovio has utterly failed to monetize anything since AngryBirds and has been in slow decline, and recently laid off a whole load or staff. Zynga failed anything past farmville, etc.

Clash Of Clans (not King) and Candy Crush are the current "in thing", but they won't stay there, and what then? It's proven to be very hard to "make" a successful game - what becomes popular isn't necessarily what is technically or artistically good - it's just pot luck of the viral marketing from the user base.

This is true in "big games" that cost tens of millions to make, where there isn't actually all that much competition, let alone in mobile games where any one man show can put together a reasonable game if they can put together a decent icon set.

Fair play to the original owners - they are just doing the right thing and taking the money and running - but you have to wonder what the hell the purchasers are thinking ...

[Jay 2]

Your post pretty much sums up what I was thinking. We've all seen some of the bigger (indy?) mobile games companies find it very hard to follow on from a successful game (or series).

My initial thoughts on seeing the BBC headline of "Candy Crush firm bought for $5.9bn" were; I bet the current owners are happy with that and who on earth would buy them?

[roytrubshaw]

"Fair play to the original owners - they are just doing the right thing and taking the money and running"

I thought I'd seen the ultimate in chutzpah when he sued the original creator of the game that he copied, but £5.9billion must take the biscuit!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is impressive, steal someone else's game, make money, all new games fail, go public, make more money, still all new games lose money and finally get bought by third party, cashout.

[Banksy]

Bye bye Activision

I assume Activision will be going down the crapper in the not too distant future with 'brilliant' business decisions like this.

[Omgwtfbbqtime]

Re: Bye bye Activision

What do you mean "going"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bye bye Activision

Legacy of the Void is out in a week, I'm stoked.

[John 62]

Stock or Cash? What now for Derby County?

i) Was the purchase in Activision stock or cash? That makes a difference.

ii) What now for Derby County? Mel Morris, the chairman of the mighty, all-conquering Rams, is an important King backer. Everyone thought UEFA's financial fair play rules were about Manchester City and Chelsea buying success, but I think it was really because everyone else was afraid of Derby County being bank-rolled by Candy Crush profits.

[Miss Lincolnshire]

Re: Stock or Cash? What now for Derby County?

Mighty all conquering Rams? You ovine botherers clearly have a sense of humour.

See you Friday @19:30, COYR!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why am I getting a feeling along the lines of "Konami - pachinko machines" Diablo cookie clickers...

[Fred Goldstein]

Just curious... is there an inversion going on here? If Activision is incorporated in the US, then it might be using King's incorporation status (Isle of Man or the like) as a tax dodge. This is becoming common among US multinationals, as a way to move their nominal HQ outside of the US in order to avoid being taxed as a US company.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Fred, I think you're on to something.

[Anonymous Coward]

" predicated on [...] humility..."

Wow.

[Gannettt]

"With over 299 billion unique monthly users, we anticipate quarterly revenues to be up 144% year on year, with an overall turnover of $2.7 trillion in Q4, which equates to an average monetization strategy reflecting maximum growth in the short, medium and long terms. Oh, and the game is pretty good as well, I am told" - A. Greedy-Bastard, CEO, MegaGameCorp LLC