Candy Crush Soda Saga: will it pop King’s app store bubble?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/20/candy-crush-soda-saga-king

– theguardian.com (Monday 20 October 20)

“It might be the biggest, but the original game has peaked.” According to financial results of this year, Candy Crush, one of the top ranking games in the app store, is expecting the number of its “monthly unique players” (paying customers) to gradually decline during the second half of this year. Although new levels are constantly being updated, the structure of the game has basically stayed the same, and it is not as attractive as it used to be when it first came out. In hopes of gaining more players, King will be releasing a new game next month, called “Candy Crush Soda Saga”. It will not be a sequel to Candy Crush, but “an additional title for the people who love Candy Crush” that can be played side by side with the original game.”

Personally, I think King would be better off creating a brand new game rather than investing in another puzzle game that is basically Candy Crush with the addition of Soda bottles. As a fan of the classic Bejeweled game, Candy Crush is no different than an imitator that chose to fiddle with an existing idea instead of generating an innovative one. In the app store, a red ocean always filled with copies and doppelgangers of popular apps, a completely new and unique app is always a welcome sight. King will have to work harder to face the growing competition in the app store with most apps having social networks and being more accessible on different platforms; qualities that used to be the points of difference for only a select few has now become points of parity for most apps.