Gah. Shamus' link is highly misleading. King made over $2 billion in revenue in 2014 on a ~33% margin. (source [http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/financialHighlights?symbol=KING.N]) If they stabilize (highly unlikely but you gotta put your baseline somewhere) Activision will recoup its investment in 9 years. Which would be a very good deal - if it goes down like that.Smiley Face said:Actually, if Candy Crush is pulling in a million dollars a day, it will take over 15 years to recoup their investment...Kameburger said:And if they maintained profits on Candy Crush they wouldn't recoup their expenses in a "Long" time as you put it, they would recoup it in, 3 to 4 years if they are conservative with some of their costs, or any one of their titles hits it out of the park.
I think that a horrid crash is a very plausible outcome (they're already losing revenue), and I'm sure Activision is hoping to synergize and get some across the board gains instead. But as valuations go, this is much more reasonable than the purchases of Mojang or Oculus. That's speculation. This... All they need to do is not screw up. (They will probably screw up.)