Activision dropped some serious cash, $5.9 billion, to purchase King, the developer behind the ever popular money making machine Candy Crush. In his press release CEO of Activision Bobby Kotick said:
“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.”
Basically Activision would like more money, and mobile developers like King are raking it in. Not a surprise to see Activision really putting themselves out there in this way since they’ve always been known to be ruthless when it comes to profits. And as developers go, King is the mobile developer to get.
The Irish based developer boasted $2.260 billion in revenue just last year and are the…kings…of mobile development at the moment. Also King just recently launched a beta for a new, free, game engine called Defold. Defold encourages quick collaboration and testing of games and even allows developers to stream their games to their own devices for instant testing.
Despite the hefty price tag this all seems like a good move for Activision. Sowing up the future by keeping your fingers in every burgeoning section of the video game business.
