King.com Bringing Its Largest Social Game to Mobile With Facebook’s Blessing

King.com is announcing that it will release its most popular Facebook game, Candy Crush Saga, on mobile in November.

The announcement was expected to be made in conjunction with executives from Facebook at a San Francisco event this evening. The game will fully sync across mobile and social, allowing players to save their scores and any purchases made across both mobile devices and Facebook.

It’s the second game that the London-based games company has launched cross-platform, so why the big party to make the announcement?

In an interview, Riccardo Zacconi, CEO and co-founder of King.com, explained that this particular game represents a key milestone for the company as it begins to bring all of its games from Facebook to mobile. This summer, it launched its first game, Bubble Witch Saga, across mobile and social. But he is particularly excited about launching Candy Crush Saga, a match-three game, on mobile because of how well it is already doing on Facebook. Today, it is attracting nearly five million daily active players on Facebook, making it the fourth largest game behind three Zynga titles.

Even as a mobile game, King will rely heavily on Facebook for distribution — which is probably why Facebook is helping to promote King’s extension from one to the other. For instance, if a user already plays the game online, a link to the game will appear in Facebook’s app in the left-hand navigation on iOS. If a user clicks on the game inside of the Facebook app, he or she will be sent to the App Store, where they can download the native version of the game — if they haven’t already.

He said since launching their first game cross-platform, they’ve discovered two things:

• Players who connect to Facebook on mobile monetize and retain better. “It’s an improvement in the game experience when they are connected to friends,” Zacconi said.
• Also, usage of the Facebook app doesn’t fall when a user also starts playing on their mobile phone. “It’s accretive,” he added.

However, Zacconi said he did not know how many players have discovered and downloaded its games through the Facebook app.

King.com, which has previously said it is evaluating its chances for an IPO next year, will bring all of its “saga” games to both Facebook and mobile, offering one seamless experience. “We believe if a player likes a game on their computer, he’ll also want to play the game everywhere,” Zacconi said.