In the
subway, in the bus, in the street, we all have crossed someone playing Candy
Crush Saga on their mobile phone.
Released on
April 12, 2012 for Facebook and on November 14 as a mobile app for smartphones
by the British company King Digital Entertainment, Candy Crush Saga became in
just a few months one of the the most successful games in the history of gaming
apps.
In November
2013 the game was played by more than 45 million people, all united in the same
goal : to destroy colored candies.
The principle
of the game is simple. Players must create color combinations with the candies
which appear on the screen.
At the
beginning of the game each Candy Crush player has five lives. If the player
loses them all, the game stops. To recharge lives, it is necessary to wait 30
minutes.
The game is
divided into hundreds of levels, with new episodes being added every month.
Currently, the game has 1,225 levels in 83 episodes, with 755 normal levels
within 51 normal episodes and 470 Dreamworld levels within 32 Dreamworld
episodes.
Simplicity
and accessibility of the game are important reasons but not the main ones.
Candy
Crush’s success is based also on the feeling of addiction which it creates
among its players. The game is updated regularly, which makes it almost
impossible to complete. The level
of difficulty is also complex enough to interest them, but also accessible
enough not to discourage it. The most important principle of the game is to freeze it when the
player has lost his 5 lives. Quite frustrating but efficient!
Just
a few months to get to the top.
In May 2013
Candy Crush became the most downloaded game for the smartphone on the Google
Play platform and the App Store. A few months later, AppAdvice.com announced that
Candy Crush developer King “was making $ 633,000 per day, earning upwards of
$230 million annually”.
The
key to the success
Actually,
there are no secrets, just an efficient business-model. King company was able
to turn its players into consumers by making of Candy Crush Saga a “freemium”
app. It means that Candy Crush is free to download and play, but its users purchase
extra moves, lives, levels and power-ups. The company has developed a business
model around this game, which is mainly based on micro-payments. Therefore, the
addiction to the game has led players pay money for a virtual life, to continue
to play.
The success
of the game didn't prevent the downfall of its stock on the NYSE
The
fact that the turnover of King Digital exploded last year (1000%) to about $ 2
billion is quite phenomenal. But the downside of this phenomena is that almost 80% of its revenues
come from one game : Candy Crush Saga.
Although King Digital is aware of this weakness and despite the
interventions of its CEO to highlight the uniqueness of its business model
based on a wide range of games, the markets and its investors didn't believe him. They are not wrong because in a market as competitive as that of games for
smartphones nothing is predictable.
In the same
way, this incertitude was detected on Wednesday March 26, 2014, when King
introduced its shares on Wall Street, on the New York Stock Exchange. From the
first hours of trading, shares in “KING” immediately dropped by 9% and finally plunged by 15.56% on the
session to 19 dollars, well below its initial price of 22.50 dollars.
Finally,
this level values the entire company at 5.98 billion dollars far from the
initial figure of 7.6 billion.
The company
responsible for one of the biggest mobile games in the world crashed on the
stock market.
Business is
an unpredictable world, where we can meet success and failure, but where we
must remain strong. King digital entertainment is trying to follow this
principle and is now « preparing for Life after Candy
Crush”.
If you are interested in the subject : http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-07/king-prepares-for-life-after-candy-crush
If you are interested in the subject : http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-07/king-prepares-for-life-after-candy-crush
Evguenia A.
I'm amazed by how successful this game became in so little time. I used to know "Candy Crushers" who spent a lot of money because of these micro-payments - they didn't even realize the ammount of money spent because the purchases were about €0.89 each. Fortunately for everyone's wallet, the enthusiasm around this game is coming to an end!
ReplyDeleteRémy M.
I never play games so it is difficult for me to understand why people are so captivated with games.
ReplyDeleteI searched for some information, it is said that when people play games, the brain could secrete dopamine which makes people happy. Once they are upset, they want to be happy by playing the same game. Maybe this could explain why Candy Crusher has such a big success.
Zhaosai Y.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRémy and Zhaosai!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for your reactions to the article.
Then, I agree that the success of the game is quite impressive and that for some people it hard to understand this success!
What is also surprising in my opinion is that unlike so many video games, it appears that instead of teenage boys and young men (who are usually more addicted to video games), it's mostly women aged between 25 and 55 who are in thrall to Candy Crush.
During the article writing process, I read on the Internet, that in UK, there were some troubles at work because of this game. For example one 44-year-old company director was nearly fired because her addiction to the game. She spent over four months around £150 and played an average of 8 hours per day !
As said Rémy, fortunately for our purse and also for the social well-being, I think, the enthusiasm around this game is coming to the end. … The only question is : for how long ?
Zhaosai, I agree that people can play games because something is missing on their lives and because (on their opinion) it will make them happy. However, I think that is not the only reason. There are also a fashionable phenomenon. By that, I mean, when someone see the other person play the game and if the game looks quite fun, the person will try it.
Then, comes the addiction... and even if the player is tired of the game, he can't help to play...
Evguenia.A
I have been playing this game for a year. It is very fun. I'm not surprised that Candy Crush has a such big success. I hope it will have more innovation and development in the future.
ReplyDeleteMingwei Y.
Hello,Evguenia
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if you like to play this game too. And are there also some other games that are simple but very successful ?
zheng
Hello Jenia
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article, I would never have thought before that Candy Crush was such a big success ! I used to think it was just some basic game like thousands one can found for its phone. I guess the adiction is strong with this one. Hopefully, as said before, its popularity tend to decrease. Time to bring new leaders on the market of games for mobile.
Sébastien T