When Does a Bad Customer Experience Drive Revenue? CandyCrush
@DavidNilssen tweeted out a note last week about the gaming company, King, that is behind the game CandyCrush and why he didn’t get it. The tweet came after an announcement that the company was considering a US IPO and, in the process, disclosed their average daily revenues. @WAC6 You should review the risk factors in the S1 like your Twitter review.
I’m not much of a gamer – casual, mobile or otherwise. But the numbers could make me rethink that laissez-faire attitude, especially for a game that, on the surface, resembles another Bejeweled copycat. 
- 225M active monthly users
- Est $850k Daily revenue – $310M annually
What I learned playing the game was that, unlike other games:
- You are limited to a certain number of lives based on time – once you use the five (5) lives you have to wait 30 minutes to earn another life – or pay $1.99
- When you get to a hard level, you can run out of moves and either have to start the level again or, of course – you could pay $0.99 to get five more moves
- What I found most interesting was when you got to a specific level you had to either:
- Tell your friends about the game on Facebook
- Play a challenge level – but only one at a time followed by a 24 hour waiting period
- Or pay $1.99
Who knew you could provide a negative customer experience and still get $850k a day?
2 Comments
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DaveParkerSEA
Thanks for the comment Dan… totally agree, so many mature companies “let themselves go” and provide horrible customer experiences when they are big companies.
Though King has been around since 2003, so they clearly aren’t a startup, it’s interesting how they used the research to get to the conclusion that a negative customer experience would convert better than a positive one…
A good lesson for startups to consider. You don’t always have to offer a positive offering if customers like the product.
Dan
Who knew McDonald’s could make fake food destroying the environment and our bodies and still get $75,526,602 a day?
It satisfies a need/desire. McDonald’s doesn’t have the greatest customer service. The employees all look like they had the life beat of them. They’re paid poorly making it even worse.
I’m thinking CandyCrush tested everything to get users sucked into the game.