Candy Crush Saga’s 10th Anniversary: 10 Things You Didn’t Know

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the release of Candy Crush Saga, one of the longest-lasting and influential mobile games to date. The game’s simple gameplay, in which players swap two candies to form rows or columns of three or more, has allowed it to maintain success across all ages.

With a decade of history under its belt, the game has managed to amass a number of incredible feats and facts. The Saga name has become a franchise of its own, developing spinoffs, knockoffs, and sequels of all kinds. This unmatched success has continued from a shining start all the way back in 2020 and has no signs of slowing down today.

Candy Crush Saga Took Only 6 Months To Hit #1 – Twice

Candy Crush Saga was released on browser in April 2012. In the early days of Facebook, the gaming world was well known for simple games like Farmville and Mafia Wars, but nothing like Candy Crush Saga. The game exploded onto the social media site and quickly became the number one most played game across the website.

It made the leap to mobile just five months later, launching across mobile platforms that November. The game took only six months to become the highest downloaded app across both iOS and Android devices. Even today, the record of Candy Crush Saga‘s success has little, if any, competition.

The Game Isn’t A Stranger To Controversy

2013 and 2014 were years of litigation and criticism for King, the developer behind Candy Crush. Though it wasn’t publicly announced for a year, 2013 was marked by King’s attempt to copyright the word “Candy” for mobile and gaming purposes. This came alongside their more public announcement and litigation against Stoic, the creator of the Banner Saga series of games.

While ultimately the company did not follow through on the process of copyrighting these words, it marked a very strange time in gaming. Video gaming is no stranger to legal issues, but the continued difficulty of copyright law makes the contrast and tension between big triple-A studios and smaller indie studios all that much more stark.

Candy Crush Saga Was The First Mobile Game To Make Over A Billion Dollars

While Candy Crush Saga remains free-to-play, the game was a pioneer in the realm of ‘freemium’ games. These games allow players to experience the full game without paying a fee but allow players access to premium boosts and abilities. This revenue model continues to be a standard in mobile gaming and is what allowed Candy Crush one of the most valuable game franchises in existence.

The game has come a long way from the start of its life when advertising was used to buoy revenue. While less than 10% of players make in-app purchases, these players provide the game with the honor of being among the first mobile games to break a billion dollars. The massive success of Candy Crush Saga continues to impress developers both inside and outside of the mobile gaming realm.

The Game Was Bought By Developer Activision For Nearly 6 Billion

Developer Activision Blizzard acquired King in 2016, marking the point at which they began to make attempts to break into mobile gaming. This acquisition came as a big surprise to fans on both sides, but it passed by without much major issue. The major shock was the impressive price tag placed on the mobile game’s studio.

Activision spent $5.9 billion on King, taking on not only the revenue and responsibility for Candy Crush Saga, but also the game’s spinoffs and the rest of the Saga games such as Bubble Witch Saga, Farm HeroSaga, and more. Since then, Activision has seen plenty of its own scandal and criticism, but King has continued to chug along with its success.

There Was A Candy Crush Game Show

In one of the stranger game show developments, A Candy Crush game show aired on CBS in 2017. It was hosted by Mario Lopez and featured a number of absurd challenges revolving around adding a real-world stressor or difficulty to players who were also playing the Candy Crush Saga game. The players would play for a modest – by gameshow prize standards – prize of $100,000.

Challenges ranged from contestants being strapped onto spinning candy-themed objects to having to toss and catch candies to decide the player’s next moves. This game show marks a unique historical moment in both video gaming and reality television, but the show ultimately only aired for one season.

The Game Has Over 10 thousand Levels

Candy Crush Saga was released with just 50 levels, consisting of all but the last episode of world 1. These levels were simple and largely served as an introduction and tutorial to the game’s concepts and gameplay. While it has been a long time since then, the astronomic growth of the game has led to the game having more than 10,000 levels today.

The game has maintained a very quick turnaround, often releasing more than three episodes a week. Each episode contains 15 levels, giving players at least 45 new levels every week – sometimes more. The pace of development is another reason the game continues to be such a popular game.

The Number Of Levels Nearly Doubled Since 2020

On January 1st, 2020, the 411th episode of Candy Crush Saga was released, which contained levels 6,141 through 6,155. The 6,000th level marked a big moment in the game’s development, but there was no sign of slowing. While it took King nearly eight years to reach this point, these last two have seen the number of levels almost double.

The first episode release of 2022 was episode 733, “Lollipop Meadow,” which ended with level 10,985. The massive leap forward in development likely is thanks to the game’s continued support from parent company Activision. The renewed efforts by the company to push into the mobile market have provide remarkably successful.

There Used To Be A Dreamworld

Early on in Candy Crush Saga‘s life, there was an alternate game mode that was intended to be progressed through alongside the main game. This was the “Dreamworld,” which was largely the same style of gameplay with one major difference – the Moon Scale. This Moon Scale mechanic required players to balance the colors of candies they matched.

This mechanic proved to be very random and difficult to manage, particularly when causing cascades – chain-reaction matches caused by candy falling into place while resolving the previous match. This led to the game mode becoming very frustrating, and oftentimes difficult to balance. This mode was discontinued in 2017.

Candy Crush Saga Has Inspired 3 Sequel Games

As is unsurprising, Candy Crush Saga‘s massive popularity has led to several spin-off games with their own unique mechanics and characters. These other games have yet to match the same popularity as the original Candy Crush Saga, but their offerings have proven unique, their levels challenging, and their characters endearing.

The Soda Saga series has offered players a unique soda mechanic, which slowly fills up from the bottom of the screen. This renews the base mechanic of falling candies by causing candies to float from the bottom as well. Jelly Saga introduces Jelly, which spreads over candies involved in a match, providing a more puzzle-oriented challenge. Lastly, Friends Saga adds different player characters which allow players to utilize different abilities.

But The Original Is Still The Most Popular

With more than one billion downloads, Candy Crush Saga continues to be one of the most downloaded apps across mobile devices. The other games haven’t come close to reaching the massive number of players and users as the original Candy Crush Saga game, with “only” a few hundred million each.

Though the idea of 100 million downloads being a small number is an incredible feat itself. Few games can reach 100 million downloads in a year, let alone maintain that many downloads for over 10 years in order to reach one billion downloads. Candy Crush has been a defining game in the mobile gaming industry and will continue to be so for years to come.

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