STUFF MEETS
THE CANDY CRUSH SAGA BOSS ON HIS JOURNEY FROM DIDDY KONG RACING TO BARBIEMANIA
Gameshave been part of mylifefor decades.
I’m one of three brothers and we played alot of games growing up –we especially loved GoldenEye and Diddy Kong Racing on the N64.
YearsbeforeImovedtoKing, IworkedforaTVcompany called Fremantle.
When they bought the Canadian gaming firm Ludia, Ibecame the go-between, bridging the two companies. Iwent to visit agaming studio in Montreal and thought it was amazing –Iknew then Iwanted to get into gaming as acareer.
Ilookaftersistergames Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga. CCS is the original, but Soda Saga has been around nearly 10 years. It has some unique features like reverse gravity and gummy bears.
Mostofmytimeisspent keeping these games engaging and entertaining. Players are split between those who enjoy playing on their own forabrain break and never want to play online, and those who enjoy the community aspect –who want tournaments, to see others playing online, and to meet up to play with friends.
The mobile gamingmarket is verycompetitive,sowemust be doing something right. We have such varied players engaging with Candy Crush Saga –youngandold,maleand female, on all continents –so we need to do lots of things to keep them engaged. That could be apartnership with Barbie, or atournament like Candy Cup.
When Barbiemania hit last summer, we wanted to offer our fans the chance to be part of it.
We recorded amassive 1.2bn views of Candy Crush Saga’s Barbie takeover, with 425,000 players watching our exclusive footage from the movie ahead of the premiere. We set up themed quests so players could help Barbie escape the Candy Kingdom and get back into the real world –mirroring the plot of the movie. We gave people the chance to collect limited-edition candies, 400bn of which were collected in just afortnight. In all, it drove the most engagement we’d ever seen forapartnership.
It’struly epic tosee Candy Crush turn up in places that really matter to people.
We offered exclusive access to new Jonas Brothers tracks, and created aCandy Crush Stage at the Mighty Hoopla fest
