In 2018. Candy Crush series beat Pokemon GO in microtransactions

With the popular mobile games like Fortnite and PUBG Mobile, many people forgot about the behemoth of Candy Crush series which is still going strong. Turns out that throughout 2018 the game earned over $1.5 billion across Android and iOS. That is a staggering $30 million people have been spending on the 3-in-a-row games every week.

The original game of the series called Candy Crush Saga was released in 2012. It alone made well over 900 million last year, a phenomenal sum for a game that will soon turn six years old. Here is a break down of how much revenue the free Candy Crush games made over 2018 in microtransactions:

• Candy Crush Saga: $945 million (63% of income)
• Candy Crush Soda Saga: $443 million (29% of income)
• Candy Crush Jelly Saga: $90 million (6% of income)

Candy Crush Saga had an outstanding year even in comparison to other industry juggernauts. For example, Pokemon Go made approximately $800 million in 2018, and neither Fortnite nor PUBG could breach those numbers.

In October of 2018 King Digital Entertainment released a new game called Candy Crush Friends Saga which managed to amass $3 million in microtransactions.

The co-founder Sensor Tower Oliver Yeh reported that Candy Crush series added almost 230 million new players in 2018. The growth rate of players was 17% higher than in 2017.

In 2016 Activision Blizzard acquired the developer of Candy Crush series King Digital Entertainment for $5.9 billion. With the high revenue count over the last years, this investment must be close to breaking even.