King (website)

King.com, Ltd., also known as King,^[1] is a casual-social games company, and the largest game developer on Facebook.^[2][3] King develops games for the web on its website, for mobile (both iOS & Android) and Facebook.^[4][5]

King games offer synchronised play,^[6][7] enabling users to connect to their Facebook account whilst playing on their smartphone or tablet device. This means that the users progress is updated across all platforms, allowing the player to switch from mobile, to tablet, to Facebook without losing their progress in the game.

King’s most popular game to date is Candy Crush Saga, which was launched on Facebook in April 2012. Following its success on Facebook, King launched Candy Crush Saga on mobile (iOS and Android) in November 2012. The game was downloaded over 10 million times one month after its release.^[8][9] In January 2013, Candy Crush Saga became the Number 1 game on Facebook ^[5][10] and had over 45 million monthly users by March of the same year.

Other games from King include Bubble Witch Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, and Pyramid Solitaire Saga. Bubble Witch Saga was King's first mobile game, released in July 2012 after its successful launch on Facebook in September 2011.^[11][12]

King has a catalogue of over 150 games available in over 14 languages. The company releases new games every month. In March 2013, King launched 2 new games on Facebook, Farm Heroes Saga and Papa Pear Saga.

Games

Active

• Bubble Witch Saga (Similar to Taito's Puzzle Bobble, 1994)
• Candy Crush Saga (match-three variation, such as Bejeweled, 2001)
• Farm Heroes Saga
• Papa Pear Saga (Similar to the game series Peggle)
• Pepper Panic Saga
• Pet Rescue Saga
• Pyramid Solitaire Saga

Defunct as of September 10, 2013

• Bubble Saga
• Hoop De Loop Saga
• King Gold Games
• Mahjong Saga
• Miner Speed ^{[citation needed]}
• Puzzle Saga ^{[citation needed]}

Awards

• Fastest-Growing UK Company – in Media Momentum Digital Awards ^[13]
• Best Social Game – Candy Crush Saga Wins the International Mobile Gaming Award's 2013 Award ^[14]
• Bubble Witch Saga was named winner of a Gold Stevie® Award in the Games category, at The 9th Annual International Business Awards 2012 ^[15]

Controversy

In 2014, King attracted controversy after attempting to trademark the word "Candy" and "Saga" in game titles.^[16] This directly impacted Stoic's The Banner Saga to which King filed an opposition to Stoic's trademark request. King alleges that Stoic's game is named "deceptively similar".^[16] Stoic has stated that the dispute has hindered work on a planned sequel to their game.^[17]

Also in January 2014, game developer Matthew Cox accused King of ripping off his own game, Scamperghost, with the title Pac-Avoid.^[18] Cox says he was in talks with King about licensing Scamperghost to King's website. When the deal fell through, Cox states that the company released the game Pac-Avoid.^[18] According to Cox, in talking with Epicshadows, the developer of Pac-Avoid, he was informed that King approached them to "clone the game very quickly".^[18] King later removed the game, but denied the cloning allegation, stating that they were removing the game in question "for the avoidance of doubt".^[19] Later,In an official statement on the company's website,^[20] King claimed: "The details of the situation are complex, but the bottom line is that we should never have published Pac-Avoid. We have taken the game down from our site, and we apologise for having published it in the first place. Let me be clear: This unfortunate situation is an exception to the rule. King does not clone games, and we do not want anyone cloning our games."

See also

• Edge Games, a company which attempted to trademark the word "Edge"

References

External links

• Official website