“Candy Crush Saga” takes just minutes to play. But a key question for investors considering shares in King Digital Entertainment’s float is just how long the games developer’s virtual sugar addicts keep coming back.
The staying power of games people play to fill idle minutes is surprisingly good. The top 10 grossing games on Apple’s U.S. App store have been there for on average 17 months. And King’s games have a better record at cracking the top 10 than other publishers’. Only three games made it into the Apple store’s top 10 in the last 12 months: two of them were King’s.
Nor do bookings on King’s games suddenly tank to zero overnight. King’s “Bubble Witch Saga”, which launched in September 2011, hit peak bookings after roughly six months, according to King’s investor presentation. But it is still making 70% of its peak bookings now.
Similarly, Candy Crush peaked eight months after launch but is still generating 80% of its peak bookings.
That doesn’t reduce the challenge of producing a perpetual string of hits.
But it might make King’s IPO slightly easier to swallow.
News Source: stream.wsj.com
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