The decline of Candy Crush darkens the future of his publisher – Clubic

The sky darkens on King. The editor thought counter the decline of his game Candy Crush. Unsuccessful, he attempts to extend the life of the game candy, hoping to avoid the same fate as Zynga. King was floated in March 2014 by betting that he would succeed in creating a saga successful games, able to supplant one day his cash machine, Candy Crush. Less than six months later, the publisher confirms (pdf) that inspired her Bejeweled game losing users willing to pay. But the decline is stronger than expected and other games meant to take over, as Heroes Farms and Bubble Witch 2, are not up to par. . So King lowers its annual forecast

The result is clear the stock exchange: the title King Digital Entertainment fell 21.9% in the exchange of post-closing Tuesday following the announcement of these bad news. The editor will be in vain that it has improved its revenue by 30% year on year, to $ 594 million, and profits, up 32%, to 165 million, are not the the most telling numbers in the mobile games industry.

The bottom line is King on commitment. The number of active users every day from 76 million in June 2013 to 136,000,000 in June 2014, which is a nice progression. But compared to 143 million daily players in the first quarter, the publisher faces a decline of 5%. And this trend is the same for the average monthly attendance, down 2% from March to June

Inevitably, this decline in usage translates into a decline in monetization. Thus the average number of players willing to pay for its games increased from 11.9 million in the first quarter of 2014 to 10,400,000 in the following quarter, which is also a total stagnation in one year. In his presentation, King does not fail to show that its revenues off-Candy-Crush grew 19% in one year. But this growth rate is still lower than its famous game (34%), which may worry investors

Average number of daily active users (in millions) -. King

The only good indicator regarding the monetization per user, who managed to climb to 19.54 dollars on average in June, against 18.02 dollars in March and 15.51 dollars a year earlier. Annual growth in sales of King wishes to single digits. If King fails to attract more paying players, it is not certain that existing users continue to spend enough to support its revenue.

And now the specter of Zynga starts to hover ter above King, who seems desperate to hang on to his game-star, aware that his other album does not measure up. The editor explains that Candy Crush still has a “long tail” , it will be supported by an application ‘sister’ at the end of the year … while trying to convince the Chinese market to play, just to prolong the stay

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