How on earth do they manage such a (relatively) small profit margin? It's not exactly advanced software at play here.

This is a great example of how gaming has changed over the last 4-5 years, no wonder a lot of developers choose this route before spending two years and millions of dollars on game that might not even break even. What a truly risky business it has become.

Prime Time TV advertising.

This looks great and all, but one has to remember that for one Candy Crush Saga that does amazing, there's a gajillion game on the app stores that don't even get recognition of their existence.

We need to put things into perspective.

It really doesn't matter. The gajillion games that don't get recognition are, for the most part, games made by one guy and probably cost the same as a Big Mac to make. 

The risk in making these games is practically zero.

Damn. People must be bored out of their minds to spend so much time playing this game. It will be interesting to see how mobile gaming will do in a decade or so.

MASSIVE warning sign. If you invest and the game drops in popularity (happens to every free game eventually, even Farmville), where's the guarantee of sustained revenue?

Release more games? Candy Crush is their biggest moneymaker but still 22% are because of the other games.. which is also impressive if you look at the stuff other "regular" publishers release and stlll don't make any money..

I don't understand how they can have 1.3b in overhead. That's insane. Did they buy all the programmers personal jets?

yeah, that's what i was thinking.   it's staggering how much money they are spending to get that revenue.   when the bubble bursts users move onto the next time waster (and it will sure as night follows day) these guys are going to collapse just like zynga. 

Money set aside for sueing other game developers for using the word "Candy"..

They probably already set aside some money in different stuff to pay less tax... Creative accounting isn't uncommon with companies with these kinds revenues..