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💎 A potential essay topic: Condition of Diamond Digger just before closure

__MULLIGANACEOUS__
__MULLIGANACEOUS__ Posts: 163 Level 3
edited September 2022 in Discussions

This is Mulliganaceous, an administrator for Candy Crush Saga. I noticed the moribund condition of Diamond Digger Saga in the last months of this game's existence. I did look up at Diamond Digger Saga Wiki, observing that new episodes were released on a biweekly basis before slowing down to monthly for the final episodes. The final episode, E132, was unnamed, was visually identical to E78 (also unnamed), and was released just under two months before the closure announcement in late October. It can also be noted that Episodes 74 and above do not have a known name for the planet and character, and Episodes 98 and after reuse the appearance 45 episodes before; notably E98 looks the same as E53, the first non-Flash episode.

There is also very little footage of levels after L2000. The highest I saw was L2103, which was posted after the closure announcement and received only on the order of twenty views as of this post. That same person also posted the only L2000 footage I've known of, and this is not a milestone level, unlike L1000. The community page for Diamond Digger Saga was already gone at the time the final episodes were being released, noting that the Diamond Digger community was already moribund at that time. Thus, I conclude that these long-standing casual games died a "slow and painful death" much like Bubble Safari noting the repeated content, inactive or closed community, and the utter lack of walkthroughs for the final hundreds of levels.

This prompted me to think of an essay question: Describe the conditions of Diamond Digger Saga during the latter months of 2021, and how this condition contributed to the game's closure.

Addendum

During the last days of 2021, I was quite shocked that two otherwise-popular King games, Papa Pear Saga, and Diamond Digger Saga, ended up getting the closure message. Though I am not that concerned with Diamond Digger at that time, I first heard of Papa Pear back in 2013 when the last level in Candy Crush was then 500 [Meringue Moore finale, featuring Mr. Pear]. Unlike Diamond Digger Saga, Papa Pear Saga died a "sudden death" after being "a bit symptomatic" due to its apparent hiatus.

I started tracking Papa Pear again after noticing the suspicious nature of Level 1080; that particular level spelled out "The End", and soon another CM announcement stated that the game's development was currently on hiatus. That was in 2019. I am genuinely surprised that this hiatus turned out with a fatal outcome for Papa Pear even though the community there was vibrant; furthermore, we got a triple whammy with the closure of AlphaBetty and Diamond Digger.

I do not know the MAU count of Diamond Digger during its final months of existance. I guess, maybe around 200k, with a handful reaching L2210?

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