Candy Crush developer King has been making good revenue thanks to the success of its popular puzzle mobile video game Candy Crush Saga. Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher Activision Blizzard announced that it was acquiring King for $5.9 billion.
It goes without saying that Candy Crush is one of the most profitable mobile video games at present. In 2014, King made $1.33 billion in revenue. King also has other games under it and there are other games from the developer like Candy Crush Soda, Farm Heroes Saga, Paradise Bay, Bubble Witch Saga, AlphaBetty Saga, Diamond Digger Saga and more.
It is believed that the developer has more than 500m monthly active users in about 200 countries, which is one of the reasons why Activision decided to pay King a sum as huge as $5.9 billion.
"Other than YouTube or Facebook there isn't a worldwide network that has a bigger number of audience members," said Robert "Bobby" Kotick, CEO of Activision, Financial Times reported.
It is believed that Activision will be funding about $3.6bn with cash and the rest of it will be funded via debt.
"The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment. 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," Kotick said in his press release.
The last such a big buy was from Microsoft, when it bought Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5bn.
Candy Crush entered the scene in 2012, when it was released on Facebook and later on smartphones.
