Candy Crush Saga's King abandons in-app advertising

Candy Crush Saga studio King confirmed with Gamasutra this week that it has removed all in-app advertising from all of its games across web and mobile platforms. "We are moving out of the ad business altogether across all platforms," Alex Dale, CMO at King told us. "The reason we're doing that, is that we want to focus all we can, and all our resources, on delivering a great player experience," he continued. "We've growth a lot over the last year, driven by microtransactions in the Saga games - particularly Candy Crush Saga - and we think this is the right thing to do from the user experience point of view." As for how the team at King will be affected, Dale noted, "We're hoping to redeploy almost all of the people involved, and those that end up not remaining with King will be treated generously." He said that "a few roles" at the company will be affected as part of the move.