Since its launch in 2012, Candy Crush Saga has grown into one of the profitable tile-matching video games in historical past, surpassing $20 billion in lifetime income by September 2023.
The evolution of King, from its acquisition by Activision Blizzard to becoming a member of Microsoft, has introduced new alternatives for information sharing and help. Nevertheless, holding Candy Crush as a forever game brings challenges, such as sustaining a huge participant base and managing a game with over 21,000 ranges.
At this yr’s GDC Pageant of Gaming, GamesIndustry.biz spoke with King’s head of reside operations Eva Ryott to debate this shift in participant behaviour and the way it units the stage for King’s evolving technique.
Ryott notes that gamers have much less time to play video games, and King is competing for that point. Gamers additionally spend more time on non-game actions, particularly on cellular gadgets.
“What which means for us is we have to enhance relevance for our video games, we have to seize gamers’ consideration instantly, and we have to make sure that we’ve an expertise that captures the participant,” she says.​
“Video games are more and more complicated lately. Candy Crush Stay has been round for 14 years, which implies we’ve more than 21,000 ranges, plenty of occasions and options. We’re taking a look at how expertise can assist us orchestrate that have to make it related, to make sure that every participant sees the appropriate factor on the proper time, but in addition how expertise can iterate on the expertise as a result of the speed of innovation has gone up a lot out there.”
Which is the place AI is available in. Ryott clarifies that King makes use of AI to help workflows, however emphasizes that degree designers use the expertise as a instrument to concentrate on creativity.
“We use AI and automation in our degree and content material pipeline, as a result of managing over 20,000 ranges – it isn’t scalable to try this manually. Stage designers use AI to determine ranges that may break, be too tough or too simple. It can additionally help within the tweaking earlier than we push the extent out reside to gamers. Which means we put out greater high quality ranges sooner to the gamers, and then handbook and mundane duties are automated so our designers can spend more time on creativity and innovation.”
Ryott says investments in expertise have grow to be more important to King to help this initiative. “We used to be very quantitative data-driven, however as a result of the market is more aggressive, we have to dive deeper into understanding participant wants and keep true to our viewers, construct belief, and actually perceive their wants.”
She provides: “The other half is how King has advanced in that it used to be very a lot data-driven. However up to now 5 years, we have realised that so as to keep related and attention-grabbing to our gamers, we have to mix that with innovation as effectively and do bigger growth.”
Ryott highlights Candy Crush’s in-game event All Stars as an instance of retaining gamers and attracting new ones, the place gamers qualify for a reside, in-person ultimate to win a money prize.
However how does King keep away from overwhelming gamers with the options and content material in a game that has run for over a decade?
Ryott says this is not a problem, as gamers aren’t bombarded with all 21,000 ranges directly or the various options and occasions working day by day. Gamers solely see the part of the game they’re in and their progress. She notes that gamers are sometimes ready for brand spanking new ranges moderately than sticking with those already supplied.
“Final yr we went from 45 ranges per week to 60 ranges per week as a result of we had so many gamers ready,” she says. “The best way we then handle that scale is thru AI and automation, which has enabled us to truly be in a position to drop more content material to these gamers. In order that’s the place the expertise actually is available in to assist us handle that.”
“Once we launched Candy Crush, we might by no means have imagined it might be a forever game. Over time, we realised that, wow, we’ve a hit right here. These gamers have been round since launch, and they’re nonetheless round. And so we’ve discovered to construct over the long run. And now we undoubtedly take a look at it as a forever game.”
King’s most important problem is retaining and understanding its numerous participant base.
“Understanding their totally different wants may be very difficult, as a result of they’ve totally different experiences and the way in which they play the game,” says Ryott.
“We wish to maintain the game acquainted for these gamers as a result of they like to remain in management after they play. They’re mastering the game, and they love strategising within the ranges. However on the similar time, we have to maintain the game up to date, recent, and attention-grabbing for them.”
Ryott notes that longtime gamers have “sure expectations” of King, that Candy Crush is “bite-sized leisure and that can at all times be the core.”
“That core gameplay is admittedly important. The matching candies, that is what gamers like and are coming to the game for. However then issues round that, like occasions and options, that is the place we do the innovation. It is actually a stability that we at all times take into account.”
Ryott makes use of the two-by-two Fish Booster as an instance – a mechanic launched final February. “It actually confirmed us that you just may assume that ‘right here is a nice innovation, gamers will be glad, growth.'” [But] they’re like, ‘What is that this?’ We actually want to consider carefully after we do massive improvements. It is wanted and needed, however we have to actually perceive what gamers anticipate from us always.
“We underestimated how these gamers would react as a result of it seems they seen every thing. And the way in which we came upon was that we went to Reddit and there have been so many complaints as a result of the fish wasn’t sensible sufficient, it was swimming in direction of the unsuitable degree aims and so on. That taught us we’ve this very loyal participant base that we actually have to honour and take heed to, not simply take a look at the info.”
Ryott says King makes use of numerous strategies to observe participant discourse, together with group websites like Reddit, however primarily depends on conventional strategies.
“Historically, we’re a very data-driven firm. We’ve got constructed a lot of our reside service on data-driven iterations. However over time, we realised we can’t simply do smaller optimisations, we have to innovate as effectively to remain related out there – we have to add more participant analysis. So we’ve participant researchers within the workforce, we interview gamers, we’ve focus teams, and we’ve numerous methods to collect these insights.
“Inside Xbox, there are some actually attention-grabbing learnings from Mojang specifically”
“However on this case, it was the discussion board the place we truly found, since you get immediate suggestions. You do not have to arrange interviews; we acquired it in a single day. After a few hours, when one thing is pushed reside, you can go immediately, and that is the great thing about Reddit. However you additionally want to understand these are probably the most vocal gamers, so it isn’t a good illustration of it.”
As for King’s function within the wider Xbox organisation, Ryott says “there’s information sharing to be had” between the businesses.
“We’re nonetheless creating the relationships, however we’re clearly excited to be a part of this larger household,” she says. “There are some actually attention-grabbing learnings from Mojang specifically round how they spend a lot of time sharpening issues earlier than they push it out to gamers versus we push one thing out and iterate, in order that’s one takeaway.”
“We can undoubtedly contribute with a lot of estimated learnings from cellular as a platform, but in addition reside providers, as a result of we’ve constructed a lot of experience round reside providers too.”
Ryott concludes: “We have been adopted by the appropriate household, so to talk. We’ve got the identical form of long-term considering round video games and expos, that are very centered on participant wants, loyalty, and longevity. So in that sense, I really feel prefer it’s a actually good match.”