More than 9 million players, according to Alex Dale, senior executive director of King, spend three to six hours a day in Candy Crush Saga. But King hastened to challenge the statement of its top manager before the title is associated with the concept of “gaming addiction”.
As Dale told the British parliamentary committee, out of 270 million people, 9.2 million (3.4% of the audience) play Candy Crush Saga for 3-6 hours a day. And another 430 thousand (0.16%) exceed this limit altogether.
In addition, Dale mentioned King’s desire for users to “play more.” Nevertheless, he does not believe that the game is addictive to the audience, writes MCV.
But it turned out that Dale’s information did not reflect reality. Later, King released a statement in which it denied the data of its top manager.
What King writes
The shares of 3.4% and 0.16%, named by Dale, refer to the DAU — the number of daily active users. But Dale mentioned MAU — the number of monthly active users (those 270 million). That is, according to King, he mixed up two different indicators.
Thus, from 3 to 6 hours a day fewer people spend on the game. And these are hardly the same players. Overall, the daily audience runs Candy Crush Saga for 38 minutes on average.
Something King, however, did not dispute. So, according to Dale, the company makes sure that players do not get too carried away with the game and in-game purchases. For example, for those who spend more than $ 250 a week on the game, the studio sends out emails and offers to assess whether such expenses do not seem excessive to them.
Only 2-3 times a month, King receives messages in which players express concern about the excessive waste of time and/or money at high levels of Candy Crush Saga. And over the past year and a half, only one player has asked the studio to block his account out of fear that he has an addiction.
Recall that the WHO recently included gambling addiction in the list of diseases.
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