NEW YORK — The company behind the hugely successful Call of Duty video games is launching an all-out attack on the mobile gaming market by shelling out $5.9 billion for the maker of “Candy Crush Saga.”
Activision Blizzard’s purchase of King Digital Entertainment will create one of the world’s biggest entertainment networks, with a combined total of more than a half-billion monthly active users in 196 countries, by Activision’s count.
The takeover will help Activision keep pace as gaming moves away from TV-connected consoles to smartphones and tablets.
Activision said it sees tremendous potential in the mobile gaming market, predicting it will generate more than $36 billion of revenue by the end of 2015 and grow more than 50 percent by 2019.
Although “Candy Crush” is notoriously addictive, it has waned in popularity, and it’s unclear when or whether King Digital’s next hit game will come.
