Activision buys 'Candy Crush' developer King for $5.9 billion

Say what you will about the quality of Activision's output, but the company makesincredibly smart business moves. Like the announcement that it purchased Candy Crushstudio King Digital Entertainment for a cool $5.9 billion. For comparison's sake, Amazon paid a paltry $970 million for Twitch while Facebook spent $2 billion on Oculus VR and$19 billion on messaging platform Whatsapp. Oh, and Minecraft only set Microsoft back$2.5 billion. Bobby Kotick and Co. definitely think this is a big deal, and considering just how many people play the mindless puzzler this is likely a smart investment.

Think about it this way, now Activision Blizzard has the entire spectrum of gamers covered: Kids and families with the Skylanders series, World of Warcraft lifers, folks who casually play Hearthstone, the hardcore who continuously play Destiny and Call of Dutyand of course, the gateway drug to in-app purchases, Candy Crush Saga. For brevity's sake, I even left out a bunch of other franchises that are cash cows (oh, hey thereStarCraft)! That's one hell of a portfolio no matter how you look at it.

drew olanoff 

✔@drew

Candy Crushin' It

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Hunter Walk @hunterwalk

@drew quick, someone mock up an In-App Purchase option for "Entire Company $6b"

9:20 AM - 3 Nov 2015

 
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Fork Parker @ForkParker

Again, @DevolverDigital is available for a very reasonable $1 billion or best offer.

9:39 AM - 3 Nov 2015

 
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