King’s “Candy Crush Saga” has gone through a controversial road, but the game is currently doing quite well – better than ever, in fact. It’s without doubt one of the most popular free mobile games, and its popularity has actually been on the rise, instead of declining as some industry experts were predicting. While King managed to make some wrong moves during the game’s lifetime, most notably their attempt to trademark separate words from its title, the company’s reputation didn’t seem to suffer in the long run, as they still have numerous fans enjoying the game on a daily basis.
Reports indicate that “Candy Crush Saga” has been earning quite the nice profits for King, bringing in more than $790 million just in the first half of 2014. This number is certainly no joke even for popular mobile games, and it’s clear that King aren’t just relying on the game’s strong popularity, but they’ve also put a lot of thought into their monetization model as well. The game’s recent release for Windows Phone has contributed to its popularity too.
Indeed, this has been the “make or break” factor in many releases on the mobile market, as it seems quite a delicate line to tread. On one hand, it’s important to give players enough of an incentive to pay regularly, on the other, it’s also important to remember that some players will get fed up with the constant prompts for payment at some point and will be more likely to quit playing.
Criticism at the game has been aimed at the fact that it’s a clone of a popular game by PopCap while it doesn’t innovate on the concept much. At the same time, some have been pointing out questionable elements in the company’s monetization tactics, claiming that King are trying to exploit gullible players with “bait and switch” tricks. King have denied the claims, stating that they have been planning their “free to play” model for quite a while, and it was an inevitable step in their games’ development.
And indeed, it seems that the mobile games market is definitely moving in that direction, and it benefits both players as well as developers. Players get to enjoy quality titles for free, only choosing to pay for the parts that actually interest them (or for improved performance), while developers have been enjoying significantly improved profits ever since they figured out how to properly release games with a “free to play” model. This is still being figured out though, and it’s probable that even more radical changes to the standard model will come out at some point in the future, but for now, the way King are doing things seems to be working quite well for everyone involved.