At least one developer believes our future is a digital-candies-based economy. Candy Crush Saga developer King is hiring banks to help it pursue an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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“King’s success and growth presents numerous opportunities for the business to develop further, and one option would be to take the company public,” a King spokesperson told WSJ. “However, while it’s an option for the future, we would not comment on when we could consider making such a decision.”
Social-game developer IPOs don’t have a stellar track record. In 2011, Zynga went public with a lot of attention from Wall Street. Zynga debuted its offering at $10 a share in December 2011. After shooting up to $11, the stock quickly shed its value.
Since then, Zynga’s shares have lost nearly 70 percent of their value. It is currently trading at $2.89. That drop is largely attributed to Zynga failing to re-create the success of its games, like FarmVille and CityVille.
King could face a similar issue. Candy Crush Saga is a gigantic success, but the company’s other releases haven’t duplicated that performance. Even with King generating a ton of revenue, Wall Street might not have a lot of confidence in another studio coming out of the volatile social-gaming sector.
[Editor’s note: We’ll also be talking about what it takes to establish long-term success in mobile at our MobileBeat 2013 event next month in SF, where we’re hosting major players to debate what makes a winning mobile experience, from Google, to Facebook, Millennial, Chartboost, Flurry, Tapjoy, HasOffers and many more.]
Apax Partners, a private-equity firm, and Index Ventures, a venture-capital firm, invested nearly $50 million in King in 2005. Both would stand to benefit greatly from an IPO.