John Gruber on the acquisition :
They were only going to pay $1 billion, but then they got stuck on a couple of levels, bought some gold bars, and, well, here they are.
More to follow later today (maybe), but as a reminder, here’s a poignant statement from an indie developer allegedly ripped off by King.com :
Congratulations! You win! I created my game CandySwipe in memory of my late mother who passed away at an early age of 62 of leukemia. I released CandySwipe in 2010 five months after she passed and I made it because she always liked these sorts of games. In fact, if you beat the full version of the android game, you will still get the message saying “…the game was made in memory of my mother, Layla…” I created this game for warmhearted people like her and to help support my family, wife and two boys 10 and 4.
I have never downloaded nor played to any of their apps, I find them dumb and unaesthetic. In light of the previous statement I could only encourage you to remove them.
Plus, I see mostly bored housewives or early teens playing Candy Crush, which makes the price of the acquisition even more insane. They are not real gamers like the core business of Activision-Blizzard, which is used to produce highly polished and immersive games. But I guess that’s where part of the money is to be made anyway and that’s sad.
Abnormal Capitalist 