Is the maker of Candy Crush Saga worth more than $7 billion? We're about to find out.
King Digital Entertainment, the company behind the hugely popular Candy Crush mobile game, said in an SEC filing Wednesday that it plans to price its IPO at between $21 to $24 a share. At the high-end of that range, King would raise $533 million and be valued at about $7.6 billion.
See also: These People Are Making the Creator of 'Candy Crush' Rich
King filed paperwork to go public in February after months of rumors about a planned IPO. Some have questioned whether King's IPO would suffer the same setbacks as Zynga, another gaming company, as it struggles to replicate the tremendous success of Candy Crush.
"They've only really had one big success. That's Candy Crush," Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner, told Mashable in an earlier interview about King's IPO. "Clearly that's a lot bigger than their other games. But as we know, as games go, hits go."
King's revenue jumped from $164 million in 2012 to a whopping $1.8 billion in 2013, thanks in large part to Candy Crush, which launched in mid-2012. The game had 93 million daily active users in December and accounted for 78% of the company's overall revenue in the fourth quarter of last year.
The gaming company has been around for more than a decade and does have a number of other games in its catalogue with millions of active players, though none remotely as successful (yet) as Candy Crush Saga.
One of the best software applications for Android isn’t even technically an Android app. That is, it’s designed for use with your Android phone, but you won’t find it in the Market, because it’s actually a desktop application for your Mac or PC. DoubleTwist helps you buy and sync music from Amazon’s MP3 store, iTunes, and any other music, video, or photo files that live on your desktop. It will even convert videos to the right format to watch on your device. Just drag and drop to take all your media with you.
As a complement to the desktop software (which it requires for syncing), doubleTwist also recently released its own media player on the mobile side. It’s pretty slick, but it’s missing a few features that keep it from being the best media player (though I still recommend the desktop syncing app, which will work with your phone regardless of which media player you’re running on the device).
In addition to the media player that comes preloaded on your phone, the Android Market has many apps to enhance your listening or viewing experience. TuneWiki is the best of them, offering an intuitive interface for your music library, access to Internet radio through SHOUTcast or Last.fm, lyrics search, music maps, Top 50, playlists, and more. To make your experience more social, you can share your tastes and status via Blip, Twitter, or Facebook.
Gmote turns your Android phone into a remote control for the media library on your computer. Once you’ve installed the Gmote server on your computer (a small download with an easy setup), just launch the app from your phone, enter your password, and immediately gain wireless access to iTunes, your photo library, and any other folders you define. Then, use Gmote’s on-screen navigation to play tracks on your computer. As of the 2.0 release, you can even stream songs through your phone’s speaker.
Pandora is your own personalized radio, playing just the kind of songs you’re interested in and helping you find new artists with similar styles. Create a unique station for each of your distinct musical tastes and tune in to whatever you’re in the mood for. The more you listen, the better Pandora learns what you really like, providing even more targeted suggestions. If you’re already a Pandora user, just log in to get immediate access to your existing personal stations.
Last.fm is a very close second to Pandora, and it connects with a variety of other media players and apps through plug-ins. In fact, you’ll find plenty of users who swear by Last.fm over Pandora, making the decision of which app to use largely a result of personal preference or which online service you might already use.
Pandora and Last.fm are great (and free) if you know generally what you’re in the mood for. But if you know exactly what you want and you want it now, go with the on-demand streaming music service offered by Rhapsody. For a monthly subscription, you’ll get immediate access to millions of songs to match your whim. Rather than buying tracks or albums to remain in your collection permanently, Rhapsody gives you all the tunes you want, right now.
If you have a standing engagement with audio programs online, there’s no need to hunt around for new episodes or launch them from a link in an RSS reader. Let Google’s Listen podcast manager find, organize, and stream all of your favorites in one place. Search for new programs, subscribe to channels, and download fresh shows as they’re available. When you get behind on episodes, create a queue to remind you of the stuff you want to catch up on when you have some downtime.
Most music players aren’t really designed to work well with audiobooks, which you want to bookmark, listen to in chapters, pick up where you left off, etc. Not only that, but even attempts at developing audiobooks have been extremely limited by their inability to play proprietary files from the most popular provider of audiobooks. Finally, Audible has released its Android app as an open and free beta (Audible account required, obviously), which gets the audiobook experience right.
If watching TV in your doctor’s waiting room doesn’t cut it, give this app a try. SPB TV allows you to take your own TV programs wherever you go. The free “lite” version is shown here, but you'll probably want to splurge for the pay version ($9.95) to get more channels. There’s even a picture-in-picture feature, which is handy if you’re not sure which program to watch. Obviously, this isn’t a full cable-like TV in your pocket -- it has limitations, including battery life and bandwidth constraints. But it still beats watching airport TV.
If you’re looking for shows offered by the CBS-owned TV.com, this app presents plenty of clips and a number of full-length episodes from CBS (including CBS News and CBS Sports), CW, Showtime, CNET, and more. Despite these somewhat limited options, TV.com still has a better selection of quality programming than any other mobile TV app for Android, and everything is presented on a smooth and watchable interface.
Who needs another expensive device dedicated to just reading books when you already have your Android phone with you? Aldiko gets mobile book reading right, with an eye-pleasing, customizable format (by font, color, margins, etc.). You can curl up with your favorite books or take them on the go. Aldiko will read any ePub file, which you can import yourself or download through Aldiko’s online catalog.
Your e-book reader handles your novels and nonfiction books perfectly, but it’s useless with the shorter-form and more ephemeral stuff of magazines and newspapers. For that, Issuu Mobile is a good start, offering a great interface for reading magazines, getting news feeds, organizing a periodical library, and managing subscriptions. Its selection is somewhat limited at the moment, but the technology is developed well enough that it could eventually become your go-to digital newsstand.