King says Farm Heroes Saga is the first mobile game developed in the UK to hit $1bn.
At a press event in London recently, King also told us that Farm Heroes Saga had 50m total players in 2022, and that it now has over 200m monthly average users (MAU) across its game portfolio.
Farm Heroes Saga was conceived and launched by King’s London studio, and is now one of the firm’s top priority titles alongside Candy Crush Saga and companion game Soda Saga.
Appmagic estimates that in the last six months, Farm Heroes Saga earned King an average of around $5.5m per month, and gathers around 1.5m monthly installs.
VP of Farm Heroes Saga Sabrina Carmona told us that a big part of the game’s recent success is its ‘1-2-3 grow’ mechanic, which was introduced in 2020. “It’s about retaining players,” says Carmona. “We have something very unique in Farm Heroes Saga – the crops and the vegetables you match in the game are alive, so you already have an emotional connection there. We wanted to really tap into that and give players that motivation to come back.”
It’s a virtual pet-like nurture mechanic, in short. Matching items on the grid grows each crop over time, says Carmona, so “the growing of your own Cropsey became not something you have to do that’s extra, it just became a benefit you get for playing the game.”
“It gives me a secondary objective – if I’ve already beaten this level, great, and even if I can’t beat the level this is not for nothing. Players really care about the Cropseys so we started to create and connect that with our seasons.”
For Farm Heroes Saga’s Pride season, for example, King added in a Rainbow-coloured super fruit, and added other characters like googly-eyed potatoes and coffee beans to fit into timed promotions.
“Players want to interact with the uniqueness, and that uniqueness makes them come back as well,” says Carmona. “Players look forward to see what else is coming as well.”
The game’s Farm Pass also gives players the choice to head down different ‘Farm Paths’ based on what they like to do in the game, and enter tournaments if they’re feeling competitive. 
Carmona stresses that with a large, mature product like Farm Heroes Saga there has to be a really diverse featureset like this, which is designed for every player segment.
“It doesn’t really matter what kind of player you are,” she adds. “What we want to do is to give every single person a chance to feel good when they’re playing the game.”
During the same press event, we spoke to King president Tjodolf Sommestad and Candy Crush boss Todd Green about all aspects of King’s business. Hit the links for more.
