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Candy Crush Saga: ‘70% of the people on the last level haven’t paid anything’

King’s games guru is Tommy Palm, on the game that’s being played 700m times a day on smartphones and tablets! Candy Crush Saga has become a craze on Facebook, iOS and Android alike. The key stat is right there in the headline: seven in ten people who’ve reached the last level of wildly-popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga haven’t spent any money (09) on in-app purchases. This may come as a surprise. Hardcore gamers (and a fair few developers) often attack King’s puzzler as the epitome of dreadful, money-sucking freemium gaming, exploiting people too stupid to realise they’re being exploited. It’s gaming snobbery of the worst kind (01), and not because Candy Crush doesn’t sometimes feel (03) over-aggressive in the way its difficulty curve nudges (04) players (05) towards in-app purchases (06) - it sometimes does (02) – but (07) because it’s based on a view of casual gamers as little more than lab rats, tapping buy-buttons when commanded rather than seeking “proper” games elsewhere. As a player, I ducked out (08) of Candy Crush Saga when I hit my personal ceiling of fun versus payment. As a journalist, though, I feel like defending the game against its fiercer (10) critics, who seem to think its players are incapable of making similar decisions.

(http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/sep/10/candv-crush-saga-king-interview)

According to the third and fourth paragraphs, what may come as a surprise?