King Digital Entertainment makes the popular and addictive “Candy Crush Saga” smartphone game. And Tuesday the company said it would parlay that success into an initial public offering — of up to $500 million on the New York Stock Exchange. But if you thought “Candy Crush Saga” was the only bullet in King’s revolver, think again:
- In the last decade, King has created 180 games.
- The company’s most popular games, aside from “Candy Crush Saga,” are “Pet Rescue Saga,” “Farm Heroes Saga,” “Papa Pear Saga” and, my own personal favorite, “Bubble Witch Saga.”
- Together, those games account for 248 million daily game plays. (“Candy Crush Saga” accounts for 1,085 million daily game plays.)
- “Candy Crush Saga” has been the highest-grossing game app on iTunes, Facebook, and Google Play, but the company’s other games have hit No. 5 on iTunes, No. 3 on Google Play, and No. 4 and No. 7 on Facebook.
- In December 2013, an average of 128 million daily active users played the company’s games more than 1.2 billion times per day. That means if just 10 percent of users paid $1 a day to get to the next level of the game (or whatever), the company would have booked nearly $13 million a day.
- King made a $568 million profit in 2013, up from $8 million in 2012. That’s profit, not earnings. Peck on that, tweety bird.