Candy Crush, widely considered one of the most successful games for mobiles, has been facing a steady decline. King Digital, the maker of the popular game announced a drop of 16 percent in revenue since the previous year. This decline corresponds to a reduction in revenues brought in by the company’s flagship game, Candy Crush Saga. And this has happened despite the fact that active monthly users were up by 37 percent.
King Digital had earlier announced the launch of a sequel to the flagship Candy Crush game series. This new addition is to be called “Candy Crush Soda Saga” and company officials have stated that they hope to rekindle the dying game.
The Soda Saga has already been launched on Facebook. For mobile users, the sequel is now available on Android. The new game is set to offer users with better graphics and fresh gameplay content. Officials further added that they hope to retain old players who had either finished the game or had gotten stuck. The new game will be based majorly on the same features of its prequel while adding for new elements.
King Digital is bent on making this launch a success and is moving away from traditional paths. The company, despite providing the game for free, will be featuring the London Symphony Orchestra to perform on the game’s soundtrack. This move is a first of its kind as free games usually going for music free of royalties. With major earnings in the past from the original game, King has no dearth of cash reserves.
A promotional video of the orchestra recording the performance has already been released. The soundtrack to the original game has also been released and is available for free download on the iTunes store. With the video release, the upcoming weeks should soon see the addition of the new soundtrack to the iTunes store.
King had gone public on the US stock market earlier in March this year. The shares of the company have been performing below par ever since the debut. The company’s other games not from the Candy Crush series now account for almost half of the total revenues. However, the Candy Crush series alone makes the company bigger than any other in the mobile games category.
Even though the company has reported declines in its profit and revenue, it has still managed to beat the street estimates. As explained to investors, company officials also stated that the next year will feature many more non puzzle based casual games. King also stated that these games will move beyond the traditional mechanics of the saga which is based on players progressing by levels. This will be interesting as the major success has been the saga system which has brought forth all these revenues for King.
King says that it expects gross figures of $525 to $550 million in the next quarter. With this new release, the next quarter is eagerly awaited and it will reveal whether the street estimates are beaten again.