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Why is Candy Crush as popular as Angry Birds? ($750k/wk profit)

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Heh - on a recent road trip my 9 year old installed Candy Crush on my phone. He then hacked the game (using a level editor where he can control the number of colors, number of bonus pieces, time permitted on the timed levels, etc.) Then he installed a hack so he can get "free" in-app purchases of whatever he wants.

I LOLed when he got 1M+ on a level where my facebook friends were getting <100K, so I posted a screencap on fb. Everybody kept sending WTF messages. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, look it up on Youtube - it's a great way to piss your friends off (and not spend any money on it).

I knew I was going to have to keep an eye on him when I saw a piece of paper next to the computer with "gcc -..." written on it, then he saw me pull up github and he said, "oh yeah, I use github too".
 
This game is popular because it perfectly caters to the casual base.

It may not cut it for your average gamer.
 
ultimatebob said:
The Candy Crush game seems to be designed for maximum profit, though. Although it's a "free" game, they add levels that are practically impossible to win without paying for some conveniently purchased in-game powerups. Then you're good for a few levels before you hit the next Paywall/Road Block level. Really lame.
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I played the game for a bit. Never paid for anything but thing I realized is that it's basically just luck. You just keep playing a level over and over until you get just the right combination.
 
99% of mobile games, particularly those of the Candy Crush Sage type, are not real "games" to actual gamers, they're just time wasters. You play it while waiting in a line, or on the train, etc. It's something to help pass the time, not like an actual PC or even console game where you're not playing to pass time, you're playing to actually play the game.
 
tfinch2 said:
Bigger target audience, lower cost to user. Consoles can only make so much because there is a limited number of people willing to pay for the hardware, plus relatively high up front cost for the game. PC gaming has a stigma of being too complex.

I have not paid much attention to console gaming, but it would be interesting to see how successful a console title would be if it were free with a pay to play element.

Anecdotal evidence time: Everyone I know who is a console gamer plays these mobile games. A lot of people I know who are not console gamers plays these mobile games.
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I'm not even comparing it to consoles. There are plenty of quality titles on iOS. Temple Run isn't one of them.
 
MrDudeMan said:
It's not laughable...at all. I want to progress past the levels and my time is way better spent working. I have practically unlimited work that I can bill at $200/hr, so if it takes me 10 minutes to get another life in Candy Crush, that's worth $33 to me, so $0.99 is a steal.
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This.

Narrow-minded dumbasses in this thread. Feel free to waste all of your time to save a dollar.
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And this.

I think World of Warcraft pioneered this in that you lose experience points for grinding too much. It keeps casual gamers on the same level as hardcore gamers. Not everyone is a nerd with countless free hours.
 
BUTCH1 said:
So people don't use stuff like AFAIK or IIRC or IDK on here all the time?, the guy uses "u" once an you go all grammar Nazi on him. Lighten up little Hitler..
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All internet abbreviations are annoying. When I see one I'm not familiar with, I just skip that post instead of look it up.
 
It's insanely addicting and challenging. I love the game and since I don't do facebook I've had to pay to unlock each chapter. Worth every penny. I'm on level 380 something.

When I run out of lives I just go back to angry birds for a bit and then back to candy crush. Some of the levels I've been stuck on for two weeks, you can tell the level is setup so you have to use a power-up, those turn into luck because I won't pay for any special powers.
 
mugs said:
You. It's three letters. You're not writing a text to your 13 year old BFF, communicate like an adult.
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Damn it! I was just on Facebook 2 minutes ago, and then I was looking for the "like" button for your post.
 
I was playing it the other day before this thread was created, and was actually thinking about the elements of the game that would make it addictive enough to entice people to spend more money. I noticed that on a hard level, sometimes it was probably impossible to complete it, based on the colors that came out of the top. Then other times, on that same level, you'd get insanely lucky. Plus, (if you play chess, you know what I'm talking about), most people aren't able to see one move ahead in some games. But, it's pretty easy on this game to see some things a move ahead. It's almost as if the game is setting you up to discover these. I'm not sure if that's intentional, or if the randomness actually allows this to occur as often as it does. But, I think that if you get stuck on a level, fail, fail, fail, fail, happen to see a couple of combinations that really help (which to anyone who's played this game for a while, should stick out like a sore thumb anyway), and complete the level with an awesome high score & 15 moves left - that sort of compliments the person. I guess it's like frustration, frustration, frustration, sense of awesomeness. - and people want to continue to feel that sense of awesomeness, so they start spending 99 cents to get through the insanely tough levels, and then experience that sense of awesomeness over the next dozen levels that a chimpanzee could finish.

<--- hasn't paid a cent.
 
ski safari. best game I have played so far... many months of endless fun without paying a dime, i even downloaded it when it was free for a day or 2, dont know if its free now. make sure u play it on the IPad instead of the Iphone 5 as iphone screen is too small. I also ave the samsung S4, wish the google play store had a concept like itunes "an app a day"

oh well
 
SearchMaster said:
Heh - on a recent road trip my 9 year old installed Candy Crush on my phone. He then hacked the game (using a level editor where he can control the number of colors, number of bonus pieces, time permitted on the timed levels, etc.) Then he installed a hack so he can get "free" in-app purchases of whatever he wants.

I LOLed when he got 1M+ on a level where my facebook friends were getting <100K, so I posted a screencap on fb. Everybody kept sending WTF messages. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, look it up on Youtube - it's a great way to piss your friends off (and not spend any money on it).

I knew I was going to have to keep an eye on him when I saw a piece of paper next to the computer with "gcc -..." written on it, then he saw me pull up github and he said, "oh yeah, I use github too".
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So, what you're saying is that your kid pirated the game and you're cool with that.
 
Aikouka said:
You'd have to be making quite a small amount of money to have that cover you for decades.

Also, since developing for iOS requires a Mac, you may want to consider coming up with your game plan prior to investing in the hardware... unless you already have one. I've been tempted to try it out, but I'd have to spend the money on a Mac Mini. Even a decent used one would probably run me $600.
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$600 isn't much money to start a business. Especially with dweebs on this site spending upwards of $1000 on gaming cards. The first app I ever released pulled $1k a month in profits.

Or you could just sell your old computer and replace it with a Mac.
 
I can't stand candy crush. They seem to make it intentionally frustrating just enough to make you want to buy in-game stuff. Even if I seem to play a level really well and intelligently, there's a good chance I won't hit 3 stars unless I try over and over.
 
lxskllr said:
He's saying his kid modified the software to suit his purposes, which is his right as the software owner.
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Nah, it's not "right" because it's getting around a paid model. I don't normally do piracy (hell, I'm a software developer) but the purpose of this exercise wasn't to get around paying for the software, it was to tweak the noses of the people I know who do play it by posting outrageous scores. We had our fun on the long trip home and haven't played since; if that makes me/him a pirate then so be it.

CC isn't the type of game I would ever play and certainly would never go past its first request for money. My first thought when I played it was "I played this game 20+ years ago when it was called Dr. Mario".
 
SearchMaster said:
Nah, it's not "right" because it's getting around a paid model.
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If it's your machine, you should be able to run the software as you wish. That's as much piracy as painting a chair you bought is. You're under no obligation to buy a black chair from the maker, even though the one you bought is white. I'm sure the maker would love it if you did, but that puts no obligation on the user.
 
SearchMaster said:
Heh - on a recent road trip my 9 year old installed Candy Crush on my phone. He then hacked the game (using a level editor where he can control the number of colors, number of bonus pieces, time permitted on the timed levels, etc.) Then he installed a hack so he can get "free" in-app purchases of whatever he wants.

I LOLed when he got 1M+ on a level where my facebook friends were getting <100K, so I posted a screencap on fb. Everybody kept sending WTF messages. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, look it up on Youtube - it's a great way to piss your friends off (and not spend any money on it).

I knew I was going to have to keep an eye on him when I saw a piece of paper next to the computer with "gcc -..." written on it, then he saw me pull up github and he said, "oh yeah, I use github too".
Click to expand...

Hahahaha that is awesome. Little hacker LOL. That's awesome he's learning stuff like that at a young age.
 
lxskllr said:
If it's your machine, you should be able to run the software as you wish. That's as much piracy as painting a chair you bought is. You're under no obligation to buy a black chair from the maker, even though the one you bought is white. I'm sure the maker would love it if you did, but that puts no obligation on the user.
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Yep. Technically it's probably against the EULA and is illegal, but F that. If I paid for it, I do what I want with it.
 
Puzzle and Dragons makes 2M a day, and it's horribly addictive, because it has both casual gamer elements and surprising RPG depth. it's generously freemium, and I haven't had the need to buy anything in game so far, but I paid $10 anyway just to support the devs. I'll probably sink another $10 into it - I've played it more than Diablo 3 ($40 when I got it) at this point.

I haven't been this addicted to a Japanese game since the Super Mario I days.
 
I'd be curious to know what Evony makes. I played that game for maybe a year or so, and I'm not one to spend money on games like that, yet I actually sank like 100 bucks total into that game. I had to quit though, it just got unsustainable to keep feeding my troops all the time. I had a full blown farming script that ran all day in a VM.

Funny thing is, it would not be that hard of a game to make. There's not as many graphics involved compared to a full blown desktop game.


Super Mario, now that is a crazy franchise. I'm sure every single person has at one time played one or more Super Mario games.
 
nixium said:
Puzzle and Dragons makes 2M a day, and it's horribly addictive, because it has both casual gamer elements and surprising RPG depth. it's generously freemium, and I haven't had the need to buy anything in game so far, but I paid $10 anyway just to support the devs. I'll probably sink another $10 into it - I've played it more than Diablo 3 ($40 when I got it) at this point.

I haven't been this addicted to a Japanese game since the Super Mario I days.
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This is why I release games with no ads and a pretty sizable amount of free content. I'm against ads in principle and I think if people like the game enough based on what I allow them to play for free that they'll buy the rest to support my efforts. I like this model much better than the micro-transaction bullshit a lot of developers force on people to get incremental content. I trust users to pay me if the game is good and it's worked out well.
 
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