It will definitely become obscene when this business model becomes the norm across all gaming.  Advertisements, microtransactions and pay to win or least pay to make easier.  I really do not think the Electronic Arts and Activisions of the world can ignore the potential to make billions more on their games.

I am really surprised EA for example has not considered having dynamic ads in sport games such as the ads along the pitch in FIFA.

OT
This bussiness model has less future than a secuel to The W101.
This is just a fad. When consumer fatigue and change in demographics affects/crushes this model and all these CO. dissapear people will run and say "we shouldnt have left the old model blah, blah...."
Kill it with fire.

Didn't check the article before, but it says is from iOS app store and U.S only....so yeah this guys could be making something like 2 million a day if we include the whole world and Android as well.

lol i looked again and it seems Candy Crush is the number 2 grossing. There is another one that earns even more per day. Behold Clash of Clans!

http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/1/clash-of-clans/

Yes, that's almost a million per day in the US alone!!

Only iOS in the US?

Worldwide, complete numbers are probably closer to what, 4 Million per day?

Insane.

Oh and something SOMEWHAT more interesting to us gamers, Here is Final Fantasy 6's 19K per day;

http://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/5904/final-fantasy-vi/

And on iOS alone. Android market is huge too. Here are the complete financial results of the Finnish company that makes it, Supercell:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/12/us-supercell-idUSBREA1B0IF20140212

So 892M$ sales and profit of 464M$. with just 2 mobile games.

As a comparison, all of Activision made just 174M$ profit last year (well, 9 months, but they are not expecting proft for the last quarter).

But even that pales in comparison to a single mobile game Puzzle & Dragons that made 700M$ profit on around 1.4 BILIION sales last year.

That game needs to die in a fire.

Angry Birds has already been around for almost 5 years. I'm surprised how much that franchise has been around without losing popularity.

But I do agree with you, these type of games don't last long, but by the time they die, these guys will have made enough money to buy a country.

while i see where you are coming from , just to point this out you may want to revise your outlook.

King is a worldwide leader in casual games with more than 30 billion games played per month globally. We are a leading interactive entertainment company for the mobile world. Our mission is to provide highly engaging content to our audience to match their mobile lifestyles: anywhere, anytime, through any platform and on any device. In June 2013, an average of 92 million daily active users played our games more than one billion times per day. Our top title to date, Candy Crush Saga, is one of the largest interactive entertainment franchises of all time.

http://about.king.com/about

since 2003, Smartphone's back than did not have the advantage of the mobile chips we have today, the point I think is even though they do not have the advantages of the chips today, they established a change in the market, today with Android, iOS, and Windows Phone OS, these new chips offer more than just "casual games" 

Fact is, look at the download #'s

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rockstargames.gtasa

look at the install #'s since

 December 30, 2013 there have been over 100,000 - 500,000 

that is just for the play store

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas/id763692274?mt=8

again

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/gta-san-andreas/c011568d-1578-4d0a-b1cc-9ab7daf58681

but yet they are not on the PSVita or the 3DS, the profit margins are high enough the ROI is out of this world most likely for publisher's, that is what has changed the smartphone chipsets are not just for mainly only "casual games"