Activision Blizzard has acquired King, publisher of mobile games including Candy Crush, for $5.9bn (£3.8bn) to create what CEO Bobby Kotick claims is “the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment”.

Activision, responsible for titles like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Destiny, is a giant of the video game world on PC and console, but this acquisition will help it push into the mobile market.

Activision expects the acquisition to grow its 2016 revenues by around a third.

Of the two companies, King actually has more users – in Q3 2015, it reported 330m monthly unique users, and the combined company will have more than 500m – but Activision makes more money. For the 12 months ended 30 September 2015, Activision reported profits on $1.1bn on revenues of $4.9bn, compared to Kings $600m profits on revenues of $2.1bn.

Its worth noting that in its last quarter, King reported a 28 per cent drop in profits and 18 per cent drop in revenues. In its earning statement, King acknowledged these drops were “primarily driven by our largest franchise, Candy Crush, as it continues to mature.”

This is a natural part of the life cycle for mobile games, but Activision will be hoping that Kings properties dont follow the same path as Angry Birds maker Rovio – which has cut around a third of its workforce in the past year following a 73 per cent drop in profits for 2014 – or FarmVille creator Zynga – which posted net losses $2.5m in 2014, its fourth consecutive years making a loss.