King: We don’t feel pressure to top Candy Crush

Social media giant King says it does not feel the pressure to make another Candy Crush-sized hit.

The firm had a mixed start to life as a publically-traded company, with analysts criticising the firm’s over-reliance on Candy Crush.

But King’s games guru Tommy Palm says there’s no need to find a hit on the same level, and highlighted that the company’s latest mobile game – Farm Hero Saga – has reached 20m daily active users after just a single month.

King has been around for more than ten years. We have always been about a portfolio of games,” he said.

We have been super happy to see the success of Candy Crush, of course, it’s been an amazing ride with that IP. But we have never felt the need to do that type of successful game again, where every other game we release had to be that big. It is extremely fantastic to see how many people are enjoying Farm Hero Saga.”

King has been criticised by the specialist games media for its use of the free-to-play business model and its efforts to protect its IP by trademarking terms such as ‘Candy’.

In general we are getting a lot of positive press from the mainstream media, so I don’t think the negativity from the specialist media, on the whole, has had a lot of effect,” added Palm.

But many of us are hardcore gamers and we read the games media. We are working hard on making great games and it’s always a little bit sad to see when people are taking a very dark stance on something. Our CEO went out with an open letter about the trademark issue, and it’s great to have that support from the very top of the company.”