Today the industry giant Activision Blizzard bought the British developer King Entertainment for the impressive total of 5.9 billion dollars. King were able to gain extraordinary popularity thanks to their two big hits Candy Crush and Candy Crush Saga and already published over 200 similarly top-quality games. Enriched by King’s grand expertise in games focussing on social media and all ages Activision have announced to thoroughly polish and improve their own range of games, especially regarding the realm of mobile games.
The supposed key to future profit in the mobile realm involves not only new concepts, but also renowned and established series. There’s more than enough to choose from: Having been present in the gaming industry for over 35 years, Activision has been the publisher of many succesful game series like Diablo, StarCraft and Call of Duty. The big publisher is expecting “fresh ideas” from the experienced King developers, whose studio will continue to be an “independent operating unit” – operated by the same management as before – as stated in the mutual press release. It’s already been made clear that the rather stagnating Call of Duty series is going to be developed by King Entertainment from now on.
“We’re excited to announce that Call of Duty will get a full relaunch”
as Activion’s CEO Robert Kotick says.
According to Activision they’re going to use the opportunity to polish the shooter series in order to return to former success. Following the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops III in several days development will be reset and started all over. Kotick framed a three-point plan:
- Call of Duty will be called Call of Candy from now on
- Call of Candy will be free to play on Facebook
- Call of Candy will lay the focus on a massive singleplayer campaign with thousands of levels
Call of Candy is supposed to still release every year, but other than previously it’s always going to be developed by the same studio now. Also, the series will be increasingly addressing fans under 13 years of age. “We are very sure that the fans will not notice any difference regarding these aspects”, Kotick says.
The first part of the reboot will be released in November 2017 by the title Call of Candy: Black Choc Saga for Facebook and mobile devices.
