Game developer King will bring Candy Crush Saga to Windows 10. It will join classic Windows games such as Solitaire, Minesweeper, FreeCell and Hearts. These games have been part of Windows installs for many years, and after a brief departure in Windows 8, are returning in the latest version.
Although players have been able to play the addicting puzzle game for years on mobile devices and through Facebook, this is the first time it will be pre-installed on devices. In December, Candy Crush Saga was released for Windows Phone, allowing them to join in the addiction with their iOS and Android counterparts.
Microsoft doesn’t plan to stop just at Candy Crush Saga – the Games section of Windows will also include other King titles in the future. “Candy Crush Saga will be automatically installed for customers that upgrade to or download Windows 10 during the launch! Over time, other popular and awesome King game titles will be available for Windows 10,” Microsoft said on their company’s blog.
Some reporters have criticized Microsoft’s inclusion of the game in their software. “For anyone who doesn’t want to play Candy Crush Saga, this is bloatware plain and simple. Third-party bloatware. To have it included in clean installs of Windows 10 because of, what, a revenue-sharing deal? Disgusting. OEMs already stick enough garbage on computers without Microsoft aiding them at the operating system level,” said Hayden Dingman, games reporter at PCWorld.
According to King Entertainment’s earnings presentation, the company is seeing 158 million daily active users on average, with around 550 million average monthly active users. The majority of them access the game through mobile devices.
