King
Video game developer
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| October 2024 | Stockholm employees formed a union club with Unionen, consisting of 217 members and negotiating for a collective agreement. |
| October 2023 | Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard, with King continuing to operate as a separate business within the Microsoft Gaming division. |
| June 2022 | King acquired the Swedish AI company Peltarion. |
| February 2022 | Tjodolf Sommestad replaced Humam Sakhnini as president of King. |
| 2021 | King launched Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!, an auto-runner game based on the Crash Bandicoot series, which was later discontinued |
| October 2021 | King announced the closure of its Royalgames.com portal, to be phased out by December 2021. |
| June 2021 | PayPal investigation into King's withdrawal processes was completed, and frozen accounts were unfrozen. |
| October 2 2020 | Bubble Witch Saga was closed following the retirement of Flash technology |
| May 2020 | King ceded control of the Defold engine to the Defold Foundation, making it open source. |
| July 1 2019 | Zacconi stepped down as CEO, remaining as chairman until August 2020. |
| February 2019 | As part of a workforce reduction, King's Z2Live studio in Seattle was shuttered. |
| January 2019 | Humam Sakhnini was installed as president of King, reporting directly to Zacconi. |
| April 2017 | King announced plans to develop a mobile Call of Duty game. |
| March 2016 | King released the Defold game engine as a free development tool. |
| February 23 2016 | Activision Blizzard completed the acquisition of King for $5.9 billion, creating the world's largest game network with around 500 million users across 196 countries. |
| November 2015 | Activision Blizzard announced plans to acquire King for $5.9 billion, aiming to gain access to the growing mobile gaming market. |
| May 17 2015 | Paradise Bay, a village simulation game acquired through Z2 studio, was permanently discontinued |
| April 2015 | Alpha Betty Saga was launched on Facebook. |
| February 2015 | King acquired Seattle-based mobile game studio Z2Live. |
| November 2014 | King sued Korean company Avocado Entertainment for copying their game Forest Hero Saga. |
| November 2014 | Candy Crush Soda Saga was widely released on Android and iOS. |
| November 2014 | Gerhard Florin takes over from Melvyn Morris as chairman of King. |
| October 2014 | In Q4, King reported 356 million monthly unique users, with 8.3 million users making in-game purchases. Only 2.3% of players spent money, with an average monthly spend of $23.42 per paying user. |
| June 2014 | By June, King's company valuation had dropped by $2 billion following the IPO, though remained profitable. CEO Zacconi announced a new strategy to build a portfolio of games rather than seeking another 'mega-hit' like Candy Crush Saga. |
| May 2014 | Pyramid Solitaire Saga was released on mobile. |
| April 17 2014 | King settled its trademark disputes with Stoic Studio and Runsome Apps, resolving the conflict over game title trademarks. |
| March 26 2014 | King completed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, priced at $22.50 a share and valuing the company at US$7.08 billion. Raised approximately $500 million through the sale of 22.2 million shares, becoming the largest IPO for a mobile/social gaming company in the US. |
| January 2014 | King attracted controversy by attempting to trademark the words 'Candy' and 'Saga' in game titles, which impacted Stoic's trademark request for The Banner Saga and led to a legal dispute. |
| January 2014 | Candy Crush Saga had over 150 million monthly users. |
| January 2014 | Game developer Matthew Cox accused King of cloning his game Scamperghost in their game Pac-Avoid after licensing negotiations broke down. |
| September 2013 | King.com applied for an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States, using the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act to keep IPO details confidential until offering. |
| September 10 2013 | Multiple early King games including Miner Speed, Bubble Saga, and Puzzle Saga were discontinued |
| June 2013 | Candy Crush Soda Saga was soft launched on Facebook and mobile, and Bubble Witch 2 Saga was released for Android and iOS. |
| June 2013 | King removed all in-game advertising from their games, transitioning to a revenue model based solely on microtransactions. The company justified this decision by focusing on delivering an uninterrupted entertainment experience for players across web, tablet, and mobile platforms. |
| March 2013 | On its ten-year anniversary, the company announced it was rebranding from 'King.com' to simply 'King'. |
| March 2013 | Papa Pear Saga was released on Facebook. |
| March 2013 | Candy Crush Saga had over 45 million monthly users. |
| January 2013 | Candy Crush Saga became the number one most played game on Facebook. |
| 2012 | King acquired the Defold game engine, developed by Ragnar Svensson and Christian Murray. |
| November 2012 | Candy Crush Saga was launched on mobile platforms (iOS and Android), being downloaded over 10 million times in its first month. |
| October 2012 | King.com released the mobile iOS version of Candy Crush Saga. |
| July 2012 | King.com released the mobile iOS version of Bubble Witch Saga. |
| April 2012 | King.com became the second-largest game platform on Facebook with around 30 million unique users. |
| April 2012 | King.com released Candy Crush Saga, which attracted more than 4 million players within a few weeks. |
| January 2012 | Bubble Witch Saga reached over 10 million players and became one of the most-played Facebook games. |
| 2011 | Toby Rowland sells his company stake back to King for $3 million. Angel investor Klaus Hommels also sells his stake at the same time. |
| 2011 | King.com launched Miner Speed, their first cross-platform game that allowed sharing of player information between web portal and Facebook. |
| October 2011 | King.com released Bubble Witch Saga on both their web portal and Facebook, introducing the 'saga' game model with individual levels and limited turns. |
| September 2011 | Bubble Witch Saga was launched on Facebook. |
| March 2011 | King launched Candy Crush Saga on their website, marking the initial release of their most popular game. |
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This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article King (company), which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.