Activision Blizzard Buys Candy Crush-Maker King Digital for $5.9 Billion

Mega-acquisition has to go through approval in Ireland, where King is based, but video-game company anticipates that everything will be official by spring of 2016

Candy Crush

Activision Blizzard is set to buy Candy Crush-maker King Digital Entertainment for a sweet $5.9 billion in a bid to enter the mobile gaming business.

The mega-acquisition has to go through approval in Ireland, where King is based, but Activision said it anticipates that everything will be official by spring of 2016.

Candy Crush is one of the most lucrative games in the world, earning an estimated $1.33 billion in revenue in 2014 alone, according to a King financial statement.

The studio, which operates Candy Crush and a number of similar games, including Bubble Witch and Farm Heroes, grossed $529 million in the second quarter of 2015.

“Activision Blizzard believes that the addition of King’s highly-complementary business will position Activision Blizzard as a global leader in interactive entertainment across mobile, console and PC platforms, and positions the company for future growth,” the Santa Monica, California-based company said in a statement Monday.

Activsion is best known for creating games such as Call of Duty, Warcraft and StarCraft for consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s Playstation.

“The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment,” Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said.

“With a combined global network of more than half a billion monthly active users, our potential to reach audiences around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before.”

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