RE: Why is everyone playing Candy Crush Saga in the classroom?
In memory of my Level 305 achievement on Candy Crush Saga, I have chosen to respond to Claire Choi’s blog post that explores the immense popularity and profitability behind the game.
A little bit of background info regarding my history with Candy Crush: I started playing earlier this year, and it became a part of my life. I would play it on the bus, when I’m eating, before class, after class, even before I go to sleep. Whenever I have time and lives, I would be playing Candy Crush. Why did I spend so much time of my life playing this game?
In her blog post, Claire mentions three principles of consumer behaviour with regards to the game. The first one is the liking principle. The interface itself is sweet and likeable. The candy within the game looks delicious, even without the deep voice saying it.
Every day, when I check my Facebook news feed, I always see Candy Crush posts. The consistency principle would also apply here. If your closest friends are playing the game, you would likely want to play too. With the number of people using Facebook these days, the marketing of the game reaches an audience that is very broad, making the social validation principle relevant here too.
The second principle she mentions is the reciprocity principle. It’s free to play, but power-ups and extra lives cost real money. Because the game is free to play at first, people may be more inclined to pay for power-ups in later levels. I think that the commitment principle may be a better application here, because once players have one foot in the Candy Crush door, it’ll be hard to step out.
The limited number of lives within a certain amount of time also relates to the scarcity principle. Players will value the game more when they cannot play on forever. They will also be enticed to pay for another life, which is priced at $0.99.
Candy Crush is able to appeal to 6 of 7 principles of consumer behaviour. Maybe that’s why people are unable to stop playing, even in class.
If you would like to play too…