Activision Blizzard Acquires Candy Crush Maker King

Game publisher Activision Blizzard acquires King, creator of the game Candy Crush. The company is putting $5.9 billion, currently about 5.4 billion euros, on the table for the developer of Candy Crush.

Both companies believe the acquisition could be complete by next spring. Activision is acquiring the maker of Candy Crush because it believes it can grow into new genres and target audiences that way. In this way, the publisher of World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, among others, gets hold of the maker of one of the most profitable mobile games. In addition, both companies believe that they can attract users by promoting their own content in each other’s games.

King’s games have a total of 474 million monthly users. This means that the largest growth seems a bit off, because more than a year and a half ago there were 400 million monthly users. The acquisition still needs approval from the Irish Market Authority, among others. Both managements have already agreed to the takeover.