The History of King.com: From Game Site to Candy Crush
King is the company behind Candy Crush Saga — the match-three game that has earned billions of dollars and that you’ve probably seen on at least one stranger’s phone on the train. But King.com existed for nearly a decade before Candy Crush became a household name. The history of King.com is the story of a Stockholm-and-London casual games site that quietly built infrastructure, audience, and game design discipline before launching the title that defined a generation of mobile gaming.
Key takeaways
- King was founded in 2003 by Riccardo Zacconi, Toby Rowland, and other co-founders.
- For its first decade, the company ran a portal of browser-based casual games at King.com.
- Candy Crush Saga launched on Facebook in 2012 and on mobile shortly after, quickly becoming one of the most-played games in the world.
- King went public on the NYSE in 2014 at a valuation around $7 billion.
- Activision Blizzard acquired King in 2016 for $5.9 billion; King is now part of Microsoft via the 2023 Activision acquisition.
The 2003 founding
King was founded in 2003 (originally as Midasplayer) by Riccardo Zacconi, Toby Rowland, and several other co-founders, with operations split between Stockholm and London. The original pitch was straightforward: build a portal of skill-based casual games that monetized through ad revenue, tournament entry fees, and small-stakes competitions.
This was the same broad category as Pogo or Yahoo Games, but King’s angle was tournaments. Players paid small entry fees to join skill-based competitions with cash or prize payouts. The model worked because the games were genuinely skill-based — match-three, word, and puzzle games — and because the entry fees and prize structure left a margin for King.
The browser portal years
From 2003 through roughly 2011, King.com operated as a casual games portal. The catalog grew large, much of it developed in-house. The games covered the standard casual genres: match-three, bubble shooters, word, puzzle, card.
This period was unglamorous but important. King developed the game-design discipline, the engineering infrastructure, and the audience that would later power Candy Crush. The “Saga” structure — a series of levels on a map with progression gates, leaderboards, and friend comparison — first appeared in Bubble Saga in 2011 and became the dominant King format.
Candy Crush itself started on the King.com portal in 2011 as a simpler web game before it was rebuilt as Candy Crush Saga. Like many of King’s portal titles, it wasn’t a household name at first, but the portal years let the company test which games players returned to.
The Facebook pivot
King followed Zynga onto Facebook around 2011. Its games moved to Facebook with a social layer added — friend leaderboards, gift-sending, friend-gated progression. Bubble Witch Saga on Facebook in 2011 was an early hit. Candy Crush Saga’s launch on Facebook in 2012 became something much bigger.
The Facebook pivot taught King to integrate social mechanics tightly with progression — life timers that could be refilled by friends, leaderboards that showed your nearest social rival, gift exchanges that prompted engagement. These mechanics weren’t unique to King, but King executed them with unusual polish.
Candy Crush Saga in 2012
Candy Crush Saga launched on Facebook in April 2012 and on iOS and Android in late 2012. The match-three core was simple — swap two adjacent candies to make a row or column of three, four, or five matching colors. The depth came from the level design, the progression structure, and a constant supply of new mechanics layered on top of the base match-three.
The game grew explosively. By 2013 it was one of the most-downloaded apps in the world. By the time of King’s 2014 IPO, it was widely reported to have around 90 million daily players. The mobile freemium model — free to download, with optional in-app purchases for extra lives, boosters, and level-skips — proved enormously profitable.
Candy Crush also nailed cross-platform play before that was standard. Your Facebook progress synced to your mobile app and back. You could play during work breaks at a desktop and continue the same Saga progress on the train home.
The 2014 IPO
King went public on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2014. The IPO valued the company around $7 billion and priced shares at $22.50. The stock dropped on its first day of trading, in part because investors were skeptical that Candy Crush’s revenue could be sustained against the well-publicized “one-hit wonder” risk.
That skepticism turned out to be partially warranted. King’s other Saga titles (Farm Heroes Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Bubble Witch Saga, AlphaBetty Saga) were profitable but never approached Candy Crush’s scale. The company’s revenue remained heavily concentrated in a small number of top titles.
The Activision Blizzard acquisition
Activision Blizzard announced in November 2015 that it would acquire King for $5.9 billion. The deal closed in early 2016. The strategic rationale: Activision had strong console and PC franchises (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo) and Blizzard had a strong PC presence, but neither had real mobile reach. King brought a top-tier mobile business overnight.
Over the following years, King became one of the largest contributors to Activision Blizzard’s revenue, thanks largely to Candy Crush.
King under Activision Blizzard
King continued to operate semi-autonomously from its Stockholm and London offices after the acquisition. Candy Crush Saga remained the dominant title; spin-offs (Candy Crush Soda Saga from 2014, then Candy Crush Jelly Saga and Candy Crush Friends Saga) extended the franchise.
The original King.com browser portal was significantly reduced over this period. Many of the legacy browser-only games were retired as the audience and engineering focus moved to mobile. King.com still exists as a website, but it’s primarily a hub for the company’s mobile titles rather than a destination for browser play.
King under Microsoft
Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in October 2023, and with it acquired King. King’s role inside Microsoft is essentially what it was inside Activision Blizzard — a mobile-focused subsidiary with Candy Crush as its flagship — now inside Microsoft’s wider gaming business alongside Xbox.
As of 2026, Candy Crush Saga remains one of the highest-grossing mobile games in the world more than a decade after launch. The Saga catalog continues to ship updates and new titles.
Why King matters
King’s history demonstrates a pattern that’s now common in mobile gaming: a company spends years building craft and audience on a smaller platform, then explodes onto a larger one with the discipline already in place. Candy Crush wasn’t a lucky one-off; it was the culmination of nearly a decade of casual-game iteration.
King also did as much as any company to popularize the Saga structure — episodic levels with cross-level progression, social leaderboards, freemium monetization with optional but well-tuned in-app purchases. That structure is now visible across hundreds of mobile games from many different studios.
For the deeper Candy Crush mechanics, see our guide to mastering Candy Crush and our roundup of games like Candy Crush. For citations on the IPO and acquisition history, the Wikipedia article on King covers the financial milestones.
Frequently asked questions
When was King.com founded?
King was founded in 2003 by Riccardo Zacconi, Toby Rowland, and other co-founders, with offices in Stockholm and London.
What was King’s biggest game?
Candy Crush Saga, which launched on Facebook in 2012 and on mobile shortly after, became the company’s defining title and remains one of the highest-grossing mobile games more than a decade later.
When did Activision Blizzard buy King?
Activision Blizzard announced the acquisition in November 2015 and closed it in early 2016 for approximately $5.9 billion.
Is King.com still around?
The website exists primarily as a hub for King’s mobile titles. The original browser-games portal has been significantly reduced.
Does Microsoft own King?
Yes. Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in October 2023, which included King as a subsidiary.
The bottom line
King.com’s history is a quiet decade of casual-portal grind followed by one of the most successful mobile game launches ever. From 2003 founding to Candy Crush Saga’s 2012 debut to two major acquisitions in seven years, the company has become a foundational piece of modern mobile gaming. For a casual browser break that has nothing to do with sugar, candy, or in-app purchases, the Chrome Dino game is right here.
