Check out the story behind the amazing growth of King in the past few years and what it takes to foster and manage it. More details on: http://2013.howtoweb.co/

2. How to get to
100 000 000
Players?

3. We create & publish Casual
Games
4

4. Hat trick…n.1 cross-platform
The leader in cross-platform games
5
5

5. Explosive growth on all platforms
Rapidly growing number of players
Monthly Unique Players
225m
Mobile
108m
Facebook/ Web
21m
March
2012
March
2013
August
2013

10. What’s the
Word?
4 Pics 1
Word
Guess
Words

12. What’s the
Word?
4 Pics 1
Word
Guess
Words

13. Cat

14. Sweden

15. Let’s play: 4 pics and Mobile Success
Fun game format
+
Candy Crush Saga
characteristics
=

16. 8
7
Let’s Play!
6
5
8 levels!
4
3
2
1

17. PLAY AND WIN
Special for How To Web!

19. 3

20. 2

21. 1

22. Level #1
Candy

23. Candy….yum!

25. Swedish candy inspiration
“Lakrits”
“Mjölkchocklad”
“Polkagris”

26. 8
7
6
5
Level 2!
4
3
2
1

28. 3

29. 2

30. 1

31. Level #2
Free(mium)
$0

32. Freemium Apps rule the World

33. Freemium
Our games are Free to Play, for
everyone, everywhere
4 categories of virtual goods (next slides)
The Design Vision is that the player can
complete the game without paying
~70% of players at the last level in Candy
Crush Saga mobile have never made a
payment!

34. Lives
Pay to save time
”I want to play
now”

35. Levels / content
Pay to not ask
friends (or FB
connect)
”I want to
play, but not
pester my friends”

36. Moves
Pay to help with
difficult levels
”I am SO
close....1 more
move and I beat
this level!”

37. Boosters
Pay to increase
chance of future
success
”I love this game.”
AND/OR
”I want to beat my
friends”

38. 8
7
6
5
Level 3!
4
3
2
1

40. 3

41. 2

42. 1

43. Level #3
Accessible

44. 10 years ago…
…people actually read newspapers on the subway.

45. In 2013? Not so much….
(now it’s also completely normal to
take pictures of random people in the

46. Not a Dull Moment

47. Playing
Day 2
as a
habit

48. - Intuitive touchscreen game play
- Age-less gaming
- “Accidental
gamer”

49. 8
7
6
5
Level 4!
4
3
2
1

51. 3

52. 2

53. 1

54. Level #4
(Cross)
platform

55. Cross Platform

56. FB - Cross-platform viral user loop
Desktop to
mobile
Mobile to app /
app store
App to
desktop

57. Play everywhere
Game State
- Progress
?

58. 8
7
6
5
This one is
HARD, like level 65 in
Candy
4
Level 5!
3
2
1

60. 3

61. 2

62. 1

63. Level #5
DEPTH

64. Depth in Candy Crush
400+
levels

65. Depth in Candies

67. Tools to Create Depth, fast

68. The Team decides…
…what to ship
…how to ship
…when to ship
…and after…
72

69. …creates passion
73

70. …leads to happy people
74

71. …happy people creates
high quality games
75

72. Depth
- Lots of levels
- Content depth
- Involve many in design
- No spike: constant growth
See next
slide

73. What do you mean “No Spike”?
iOS, U.S., Grossing

74. Go Fast…
…and iterate until awesome
79

75. We release every 2 weeks
Continuous improvements & fast feedbac
80

76. 8
7
6
5
Level 6!
4
3
2
1

78. 3

79. 2

80. 1

81. Level #6
Social

82. Social
- Don’t confuse Social with Multiplayer
- Needs to be fun alone…
…but even MORE fun with others
- Primarily collaborative, not competitive

84. 8
7
6
5
Level 7!
4
3
2
1

86. 3

87. 2

88. 1

89. 캔디크러쉬사가 Level #7
Universal

90. What have we changed?
- Localized language and social
graph (Not culture)
- Candy Crush = universal gameplay
- Nothing else…we believe that
fantastic games have universal
appeal

91. 8
7
6
5
Final level!
4
3
2
1

93. 3

94. 2

95. 1

96. Level #8
(Ever)green

97. Evergreen Gameplay Formats

98. Evergreen: Match-3 (1 billion hits on
Google)

99. Evergreen: Tetris

100. Evergreen: Solitaires

101. Evergreen: Characteristics
- Healthy mix of Skill and Chance
- Healthy mix of simplicity
(accessible) and complexity
(depth)
- “I’ll play just one more time”

102. Evergreen Gameplay Formats

103. Summary of Candy Crush Characteristics
1
2
Candy
5
3
Freemium
6
Depth
4
7
Social
CrossPlatform
Accessible
8
Universal
100,000,000 players
Evergreen

104. Thank you for listening!
Thomas Hartwig
CTO, King
thomas@king.com