Candy Crush Saga maker — ‘King’ sells for $5.9 billion

Another big hitter added to Activision’s roster

The Candy Crush Saga maker — King Digital Entertainment, has just struck a deal with Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion dollars. According to the press release, King will make Activision Blizzard "one of the largest global entertainment networks with over half a billion combined monthly active users in 196 countries.”
 

You may ask why did this deal cost over 5 billion dollars? Well, last year King had 2 of the best iOS and Android apps (Candy Crush Saga & Candy Crush Soda Saga), which generated $2.1 billion in revenue. King had 533 million monthly active users in 2014, and their games were played more than 1.5 billion times per day.

"The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment," said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard."With a combined global network of more than half a billion monthly active users, our potential to reach audiences around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before.”

"Combining one of the largest mobile gaming communities with Activision Blizzard's leading franchises creates potential opportunities to grow and cross-promote content to a diverse audience, while providing players more opportunities to engage with its content," 

Activision now has literally all genres and platforms covered — the mobile, console and PC  are all filled with a plethora of big AAA titles. Who would’ve thought a free-to-play game would ever cost this much! 

Do any of you still play Candy Crush? How do you feel about Activision buying out King? Let us know in the comments below!