Riccardo Zacconi, King.com's CEO.
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King CEO shakes off sour Candy Crush Saga investors

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

King Digital Entertainment hasn’t had a stellar initial public offering, starting out its first trading at $22.50 a share and then dropping within a few hours to $19.90 a share, down more than 11 percent.

But Riccardo Zacconi, the chief executive of King, isn’t crushed. The maker of the monster mobile social gaming hit Candy Crush Saga is now valued at $6 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, and Zacconi’s own stake in the company is worth around $600 million. The company, which is incorporated in Ireland and has its headquarters in London, raised $326 million for itself in the offering, and it’s one of the biggest players in the multibillion dollar mobile gaming industry.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.