Candy Crush Saga has been unveiled as Google Play’s most downloaded game of all-time. The addictive puzzle title beat Subway Surfers and Temple Run 2 to claim the coveted award for Google Play’s 10th anniversary. 8 Ball Pool and Minion Rush make up the rest of the top five.
The data was compiled by application analytics website App Annie, who examined which game had been the most downloaded on the Google Play store over the past decade. Surprisingly, huge smartphone hit Angry Birds, which was developed by Rovio Entertainment, only came in at sixth position. Pokemon Go – the breakthrough hit developed by Niantic based on Nintendo’s renowned franchise – didn’t even make the top 10 list, despite its popularity on Android devices since its launch in 2017.
Candy Crush Saga also came out on top in all-time consumer spend category too. The game saw off competition from Supercell title Clash of Clans and Pokemon Go to claim first place, while its sister title – Candy Crush Soda Saga – came in at number four. Unlike the all-time downloads list, Angry Birds failed to make this particular top 10 standings.
Candy Crush Saga, which was developed and published by King in December 2012 on Android phones, has been downloaded 2.6 billion times across the three platforms that it’s available on. The free-to-play title, which uses microtransactions to fund the game, sees players swap colored pieces of candy on a board to match three of the same color. Doing so eliminates those candy items from the screen, and replaces them with other options to keep the game going.
King was bought by Activision Blizzard in February 2016 for a fee thought to be around $5.9 billion. It still operates as its own entity under the Activision name, however. Candy Crush Saga is available to download on Google Play, as well as the Apple App Store and Windows Store, now.
