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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Analysis and Opinion   >   Analysis   >   Why Candy Crush is a success that can’t be copied

Why Candy Crush is a success that can’t be copied

By on September 27, 2013

I was speaking at the WSJ Europe Tech Cafe yesterday on many topics, but one of the topics that seemed to focus everyone’s attention was how King was making quite so much money from a game that is basically a Match-3 game.

I think Candy Crush Saga is more sophisticated than many people give it credit for. But I was asked to distil the success of Candy Crush Saga into three points. They are:

  • It has a great Retention Game (check out the GAMESbrief poster for more on that)
  • It integrated social into the Retention Game elegantly and effectively
  • It built on 10 years experience, two pivots and 150 game experiments.

I was asked to make a short, punchy video explaining all of that. Here it is.

(And yes, I know that my mouth movements make me look a little manic. What can I say: I’m a more practiced stage performer than camera performer.)

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com