

King, the Swedish Creator of Candy Crush Saga, To File For IPO - pathy
http://arcticstartup.com/2013/09/27/king-the-swedish-creator-of-candy-crush-saga-to-file-for-ipo

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JonFish85
Great! Another game company that makes insane amounts of cash with addictive
flash-in-the-pan games files for IPO. Fast-forward 3 years, and we have
another Zynga on our hands: a company that has no sustainable way of making
money. Relying on short-lived hits does not translate well into a public
company (in my opinion). I hate companies like that.

~~~
lowmagnet
Not to mention the scummy nature of how they entice users to pay to play, such
as 'insert coin to continue playing' mechanism after you fail a board a few
times.

Also offensive is the use of sound in these games to ratchet up excitement
like a slot machine.

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omni
Pretty much every video game from at least the last three decades has "[used]
sound...to ratchet up excitement." I would hardly use the word "offensive" to
describe this.

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saraid216
Don't forget every movie since the end of silent films.

...wait, no. Also silent films. Because _orchestra_.

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rmccue
Interesting fact: King has existed since 2003, but they're only now going
public. Given that their only real success so far is Candy Crush Saga, you
have to wonder if this will be the next Zynga.

(Also fun fact, Notch worked for King until Minecraft became big enough to pay
for full time development.)

~~~
citricsquid
You're correct that Notch worked at King[1] for many years, but he had left
King long before Minecraft became big enough to pay for development. He left
king in early 2009 and started Minecraft in May 2009 while working for
Jalbum[2], in June 2009 he started opening up sales of Minecraft and in August
2009 went part-time at Jalbum so that he could focus some time on Minecraft.
He left Jalbum completely on June 1st 2010. A fun fact about Jalbum and Notch
(although this is steering way off topic): after Minecraft really started to
take off Notch recruited a bunch of people from Jalbum, one of the Mojang co-
founders was the Jalbum CEO (Carl Manneh) and a couple of Mojang employees
were Jalbum employees.

[1] He was an actionscript programmer, he worked on
[http://www.king.com/games/action-
games/luxor/](http://www.king.com/games/action-games/luxor/)
[http://www.king.com/games/action-games/carnival-
shootout/](http://www.king.com/games/action-games/carnival-shootout/) among
others

[2] [http://jalbum.net](http://jalbum.net)

~~~
brador
Did King ever make a claim to the Minecraft IP?

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6thSigma
I know a few people who put >$10 into this game who previously never bought
anything on the app stores. If anything, I'm glad they were able to get more
people to link their credit cards to their accounts.

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bdcravens
Rovio has been around about as long as King, generated $200M in 2012, and
hasn't gone public. They have merchandising deals all over the place, and even
some big media tie-ins. They have a story they can build off of, and are
licensing the Star Wars brand, no small feat.

Candy Crush has a gameplay based on blocks - there's probably hundreds, if not
thousands, of mobile apps with the same gameplay. Pet Rescue? Same thing. At
least Zynga had story lines or social interaction in their apps. (And by
social I don't mean harassing your friends on Facebook to give you a life in
the game)

That said, it's a fun little game. I'll play a quick game while tests are
running, Vagrant instance is booting, I'm taking a seat in the executive
office, etc. Have they hit on a formula that can deliver shareholder value for
years to come? Absolutely not.

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dsirijus
I have no sources for the following, but I think they're a one trick pony. And
not because they have a single popular game but just one, well, trick - I
think they optimize "random" level generation based on monetization
performance data. And I think they spend quite a lot of time on that. I
wouldn't be surprised to hear that most of man hours go into that. It just
snowballed from that.

That's it. I wouldn't buy into that.

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marco-fiset
The founders should just retire from the fortune they made and let the company
die.

~~~
differentView
That's what this IPO is for, cashing out.

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frankcaron
I truly look forward to the burst of this flash-in-the-pan game startup IPO
bubble, albeit with slight sorrow for the truly hard-working game devs who are
feeding the producers and business staff with their undervalued efforts.

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debacle
Candy Crush is a pretty good game. Not novel, for sure, but well polished and
neat.

That said, a minor success doesn't really mean you're ready for an IPO, I
don't think.

~~~
lowmagnet
A minor success after 10 years of trying, no less.

~~~
ambiate
With this attitude, most developers should toss in the towel at 'Hello World.'

~~~
dualogy
> With this attitude

Most developers including me would probably be better served by a _realistic
attitude_ such as displayed above by lowmagnet. Unfortunately, this too takes
some 10+ years...

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giulianob
Seems like nowadays if you have a single hit you can make A LOT of money but
trying to keep it a sustainable business when you depend on hits is very hard.
I think they can definitely have a very good business. You just shouldn't look
at their current finances as indication for how they will be in the future
unless they can keep pumping out hits.

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blahpro
Zynga's market cap is listed as $2.9 million. Presumably this is a typo; it's
~$2.9 _billion_.

~~~
lowmagnet
Proof that market cap is just numbers on paper, considering all the lay-offs.

~~~
6thSigma
They have ~$1.1B in cash, so their true market cap is closer to $1.8B.

~~~
roin
It sounds like you're trying to get to their enterprise value (simplified as
market cap + debt - cash), but market cap is market cap (value of outstanding
shares). They also own other large assets such as their building in SF.

With revenue of $231M last quarter their market cap looks pretty bad. But
that's expected given their trajectory.

~~~
6thSigma
Right, I was pointing out that their huge cash pile is a large reason for that
high market cap despite their decreasing revenues.

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rblatz
I admit it, I was hooked on candy crush and so were a lot of my friends. But
in the last month a huge portion of them just quit playing. I wonder if this
is just a weird exception, or if this is a larger trend.

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officemonkey
You eventually get stuck on a level, that (a) is no fun to play and (b) feels
impossible. This makes you feel like they're holding you hostage for a buck.

So I slowly stop playing.

And soon the app updates and, gee whiz, I somehow complete the level easily,
and I roll on another 10-20 levels until the next impossible "hostage" level.

Playing CandyCrushSaga 100% legit makes you cynical.

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cjoh
At a valuation of a billion dollars greater than Blackberry's market cap.

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jbrooksuk
And that's the end of Candy Crush then.

