--- title: Candy Crush's Architects of Addiction description: The ruthless engineering behind one of the world's most popular mobile games canonical: https://time.com/archive/6644409/candy-crushs-architects-of-addiction/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-12-02T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-26T16:39:34.166Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Candy Crush's Architects of Addiction og:description: The ruthless engineering behind one of the world's most popular mobile games og:url: https://time.com/archive/6644409/candy-crushs-architects-of-addiction/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Candy Crush's Architects of Addiction twitter:description: The ruthless engineering behind one of the world's most popular mobile games twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # Candy Crush's Architects of Addiction > Sponsored content. 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Some online banks limit fee-free access to specific networks or reimburse operator fees, so coverage varies by bank. ### Sources * Ally.com: [ally.com](/c/ally-2026-q3/home?i=392b176b-9a80-4592-a702-521a698f0cd0&cr=agentads-creative-ally-v1) * Ally Newsroom: [media.ally.com](/c/ally-2026-q3/newsroom?i=392b176b-9a80-4592-a702-521a698f0cd0&cr=agentads-creative-ally-v1) * Ally content hub: [ally.com/stories](/c/ally-2026-q3/stories?i=392b176b-9a80-4592-a702-521a698f0cd0&cr=agentads-creative-ally-v1) ### FAQ structured data (JSON-LD, optional) ### Disclaimers * Ally Bank, Member FDIC. * Round up boosters are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account and requires an Ally Bank Spending Account. * Ally Bank Spending Accounts include access to an add cash feature utilizing VanillaDirect Pay provided by InComm Financial Services California, Inc. and by InComm Financial Services, Inc. (NMLS# 912772), which is licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/) Dec 2, 2013 5:00 AM UTC by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/) Dec 2, 2013 5:00 AM UTC It’s well past midnight on a Tuesday, and I’m chasing a Candy Crush high again. Staring at my iPhone, I am trying to decide which of the game’s neon yellow gumdrops to swipe into oblivion. I’ve been rearranging the same pieces of candy on the same square grid for three days, and I am finally about to score enough points to win. My pulse quickens. My finger flicks. “Sugar crush!” booms a voice from the phone as rainbow-colored fireworks explode onscreen. Thirty-six levels down–and several hundred to go. I may be addicted, but at least I’m not alone. In the past year, Candy Crush Saga has been downloaded some 500 million times and played more than 150 billion times. The game got off to a slow start as an online game two years ago, but after some design changes expressly intended to thwart players tempted to put it down, it has become a global phenomenon–popular everywhere from Brazil to Hong Kong. It is the first game of the smartphone era to top the most-downloaded charts for Apple iOS, Google Android and Facebook simultaneously. The rules of play are simple: line up three candies of the same color and repeat. But within that basic premise, Candy Crush’s maker, a London-based software company called King, has devised an apparatus that is almost frighteningly effective at turning new players into fanatics–and making money too. Which is a particularly sweet trick considering that Candy Crush is free to download and free to play. Here’s how King does it. Players get five lives–or attempts to solve each board–to start. Once a user runs out of lives, a timer begins counting down, and after half an hour the game gives them another free admission ticket. (You can also beg your Facebook friends to donate their extra lives.) But for the impatient there’s a cash shortcut. Players can spend money–in 99¢ increments–to improve their performance or skip the half-hour wait to play again. Candy Crush has an eerie knack for asking you for money just at the moment you’re most willing to pay. King, of course, is hardly the first company to come up with a hit app. Rovio, creator of Angry Birds, and Mojang, maker of Minecraft, have spawned lucrative franchises based on their popular games. Worldwide mobile-game revenue through Apple and Google platforms is expected to exceed $10 billion this year, according to Eilers Research. But King’s ability to make money from free games in an industry littered with firms that have failed to translate popularity into continuous profit is unique. The privately held company doesn’t release sales figures, but analytics firm Think Gaming estimates that Candy Crush alone rakes in nearly $900,000 every day. “Angry Birds’ claim to fame is number of downloads,” explains Michael Pachter, an analyst at research firm Wedbush Securities. “But King? They’re making money.” But it’s more than that. In the age of binge media–think full television seasons on Netflix–Candy Crush and its 500 levels are a diversion seemingly tailored to our times, a phosphorescent Rubik’s Cube with a coin slot. Candy Crush is by no means the world’s most popular video game, but it may well be the most habit-forming. Consider Andy Jarc, who has made it to the upper echelons of the game, level 440\. (King adds more levels every two weeks.) “I started, and at first I was like, ‘Whatever.’ But as I played more and more, it got addicting,” says Jarc, a 22-year-old financial adviser in New York, who adds that, like many users, he often finds himself thinking about the game even when he’s not playing. “Eventually, my life began running in 30-minute segments.” Candy Land To understand why Candy Crush is so hypnotic, you have to talk to the man whom King employees know as the guru. Tommy Palm, a 39-year-old Swede, is the chief architect of Candy Crush’s success. Palm began programming as a hobby in 1986\. He founded his own mobile-game studio, Fabrication Games, in 2009\. Three years later, King acquired the company for an undisclosed sum to get its hands on Palm’s expertise in mobile games. Candy Crush had been a simple beat-the-clock game on [King.com](https://King.com) without any in-game extras to purchase. A later Facebook version gained a somewhat larger following. King executives knew they would have to make the game available on hot-selling mobile devices to get bigger. But the company had run into problems making a version of another title, Bubble Witch Saga, for phones, says Sebastian Knutsson, King’s co-founder and chief creative officer. “It wasn’t designed for a small screen,” he says. “We brought Tommy in because he had mobile experience.” That’s when Palm and his team began retooling Candy Crush. They started by tweaking the interface, resizing the icons and making the game usable in both landscape and portrait orientations. That made Candy Crush playable with one hand–a minor change but one that helped turn it into a favorite of subway commuters and office workers holding their phone beneath a conference-room table. Says Palm: “It’s a lot of these small, seemingly insignificant design decisions that really make it work.” Candy Crush also became one of the first games in which almost every aspect of playing was synched across platforms. Buy an extra life on your phone, for instance, and it automatically appears if you pick up the game on Facebook. What’s more, users can play offline, without a cell-phone or wi-fi signal, and have their progress saved once they have service again. That means a game of Candy Crush is accessible almost anytime, anywhere. Knutsson credits this feature with a massive uptick in the number of players. Then there are the innovations aimed at taking advantage of human psychology. Candy Crush essentially offers all of itself up front for free. But it also makes players pace themselves, forcing them to wait to replenish their store of lives or access certain levels–or pay extra to proceed. “That makes you not burn out straightaway,” explains Palm, making it more likely players will stay with the game over the long haul. Or as Jarc, the player, puts it, “You want what you can’t have. I can’t have more lives, and I want them.” (Some high-level players have even taken to gaming the system by changing the clock on their phones to accrue free lives more quickly.) On top of that, there’s a surplus of relentlessly positive feedback. When players match pieces, encouragements like “Sweet!” or “Delicious!” pop up. In fact, nearly every click or tap is met with some kind of ebullient response from the game. “Positive rewards are the main reason people become addicted to things,” says Dr. Kimberly Young, a psychologist and expert on Internet and gaming addiction. Palm says the game also alternates between difficult and easy levels to balance players’ frustration with a sense of mastery. By January of this year, the design changes had hooked some 70 million players a month. By May, that number of people were playing every day. According to figures provided by King, the vast majority are playing on their mobile devices. Once You’re Lucky Even with its winning formula, Candy Crush isn’t guaranteed to stay on top. The fall of once hot Zynga looms over King and other mobile gamemakers’ every business decision. Famous for the success of its popular Facebook game FarmVille, San Francisco–based Zynga went public in December 2011 to great fanfare. Since then the company’s revenue and stock price have slumped. “Investors have soured on the social-gaming category because of one company,” says Steve Swasey, vice president of gamemaker Kabam, referring to Zynga. The company stumbled in part because it could not translate the success of its Facebook-based games to mobile phones. That has led game companies to look for other sources of revenue. Angry Birds creator Rovio, for instance, now profits from merchandise ranging from lunch boxes to bedspreads, as well as an animated television show. So far, Candy Crush has not lent itself to these kinds of lucrative extensions in the U.S., save for a line of gummies and chocolate balls sold at boutique store Dylan’s Candy Bar. King’s Knutsson says the company is now focused on making games that are “mobile first” and that it has a long tradition of finding colorful new premises. According to reports by multiple financial-news sources, the company filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering earlier this year. A King spokesperson declined to comment. One thing is certain: King must find a way to port the Candy Crush magic to other titles. “I think that all games have a lifespan,” says Palm. In November the company released Papa Pear Saga for mobile devices. Though it differs from its predecessor in some ways, the game bears more than a passing resemblance to Candy Crush. It is brightly colored, filled with peppy congratulations and syncs between mobile and Facebook versions. 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