gaming
Sweet, Sweet Victory! Candy Crush® All Stars Tournament Winner Announced
- Jay, 51, from New York, beat millions of Candy Crush Saga® players worldwide to attend the live final where he was crowned Candy Crush All Star 2023, winning $100,000 USD
- A fiercely competitive Candy Crush® All Stars Tournament final in London saw the top three players each win an exclusive championship Ring, designed by celebrity jeweler Icebox
NEW YORK /PRNewswire/ — In an epic battle of the thumbs, Candy Crush Saga has crowned its ultimate All Stars champion following a live final in London for the biggest prize in casual mobile gaming.
Jay, 51, was named Candy Crush All Star 2023, taking home $100,000 and a specially crafted bling-tastic championship ring from celebrity jeweler, Icebox, after collecting the most purple All Star Candies in an intense, head-to-head battle to win.
Hailing from New York, Jay beat Cole, from Eugene, Oregon, and Fran, from Madrid, Spain, who finished second and third out of the group of ten finalists spanning three continents – winning $50,000 and $30,000 respectively, alongside runner-up championship rings.
Specially designed for the tournament by renowned Atlanta-based jeweler, Icebox – who have made championship rings for some of the biggest names in sports – the three rings, worth over $75,000 in total, are bedazzled with rare gems inspired by the game’s iconic Candies. Dripping in Amethysts, Yellow and Orange Sapphires, Rubies, Blue Topaz and Brown Tourmaline, they are set into a bespoke 14K Gold Candy Drip setting for a color-popping sensation.
Jay, a fibre optics specialist and father of four who’s completed more than 9,000 Candy Crush Saga levels, said: “When I heard I won, it was mind-blowing, that’s all I can say, it was incredible. It’s like I just won the Super Bowl and I got the ring! I thought Cole had me, I really did, he is one cold guy. Meeting the other finalists was amazing, we all have the same thing in common: Candy Crush – it’s a universal language.”
The free-to-enter Candy Crush All Stars tournament, held to mark the 20th anniversary of the game’s developer, King, stretched across two months with quarter and semi-finals held to whittle down the competition to the top 10. To receive an invite to the final, competitors needed to move through the tournament stages by collecting as many purple All Stars Candies as possible.
To celebrate, the finalists, along with a guest of their choice, enjoyed an all expenses paid trip to London and a victory dinner. The once-in-a-lifetime experience also included a week’s stay in a candified room at a luxury London hotel, as well as a ‘behind the candy curtain’ tour of King’s London HQ.
At the live final event, the finalists donned Candy Crush varsity jackets and were welcomed onto a purple carpet where they were cheered on before competing with their fellow Candy Crush All Stars finalists. To win, Jay had to survive elimination in three tense rounds – coming from behind in the semi-final to nab the last qualifying spot – before the final head-to-head.
Todd Green, General Manager of the Candy Crush Franchise at King said: “The sheer quality of play across the tournament stages and especially the live final was just incredible, and we were delighted to crown Jay as our deserving winner and ultimate Candy Crush All Stars champion.
“For many players, Candy Crush Saga represents a colorful and enjoyable way to pass the time, but we have a huge amount of loyal fans who love to invest the time and dedication into becoming a true All Star.”
Candy Crush Saga is available to download and play for free on iOS and Android. To learn more about the mobile game, visit: www.candycrushsaga.com
About King
With a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company and the creator of the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile game hits including Farm Heroes Saga. Candy Crush is the top-grossing franchise in U.S. app stores, a position it has held for the last five years, and King’s games are being played by 243 million monthly active users as of Q1 2023. King, a part of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), has game studios in Stockholm, Malmö, London, Barcelona and Berlin and offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Malta. More information can be found at King.com or by following us on LinkedIn, @lifeatking on Instagram, or @king_games on Twitter.
© 2023 King.com Ltd. King, the King crown logo, Candy Crush, the Tiffi character, Candy Crush Saga and related marks are trademarks of King.com Ltd and/or related entities.
All Stars competition T&Cs can be found here: https://candycrush-saga.web.app/pages/all_stars_terms
SOURCE King
Tech
Professional gaming is brutal on the body – inside the growing field of treating esports injuries
Professional gaming can cause serious physical and mental strain, including wrist injuries, back pain, vision problems and sleep disturbances. As esports grows, specialists are developing new prevention and rehabilitation strategies to protect players.
Erica D. Henn, Temple University
Chinese esports player Jian “Uzi” Zi-hao was more than a star “League of Legends” player: He was so talented that his team structured its entire strategy around his abilities, funneling resources to him and another teammate, Shi “Ming” Sen-Ming, so the duo could lead the team to victory. Over the course of his career, he earned more than US$500,000 in tournament prize money.
And yet in 2020, Jian announced his retirement, his storied career cut short by chronic wrist and arm injuries.
He was 25 years old.
Video games have a reputation for keeping people glued to the couch. But for those who compete against the best players in the world, gaming can be surprisingly physically and mentally taxing.
The strain of ‘climbing the ladder’
The best esports players often have grinding schedules. They’re expected to regularly practice, participate in scrimmages and compete in official matches. Even at the recreational level, esports players cite the mental toll: playing for hours a day, every day, to hone their skills so they can “climb the ladder.”
A 2021 study of Portuguese esports players found that 37% experienced anxiety and depression, and 45% experienced sleep disturbances. The most common physical injuries in esports generally fall under eye problems and musculoskeletal issues.
Prolonged screen time leads to many types of vision problems in gamers, from the more common eye fatigue to a decreased ability to focus. Furthermore, the light emitted from screens appears to contribute to sleep disturbances by disrupting the release of melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
Many esport players – professional or otherwise – also battle hand and wrist pain, with repetitive button-smashing causing injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis and “gamer’s thumb,” which arises from overuse or irritation of the tendons around the thumb and wrist. Many of the overuse injuries seen among video game players are also familiar to assembly-line workers, whose jobs can involve similarly repetitive movements.
Then there are the back injuries. Players can remain seated for three or more hours without a break, and this prolonged sitting can take a toll on the lower back and spine.
The sedentary nature of esports has also led to a lesser-known – sometimes fatal – injury called deep vein thrombosis: a blood clot, often in the leg, that can become life-threatening if it travels to the lungs. In 2011, British gamer Chris Staniforth – who would play for as long as 12 hours at a time – died of the condition.
Preventative measures
As more esports injury research has been published, more treatment and prevention strategies have emerged.
Top esports teams now have physical therapists, performance psychologists, athletic trainers and even massage therapists on staff to optimize the performance and recovery of their players.
Teams often incorporate group exercise activities to both build rapport among players and reduce the risk of injuries. During competition, proper positioning of the spine and limbs has become an essential injury prevention strategy. For example, selecting a chair that encourages an upright posture can reduce pain and injury risk, especially when gamers couple ergonomics with an exercise program that centers on functional strength, mobility and stretching of the upper limbs.
Looking to the stage
When esports began gaining mainstream popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s, its proponents were eager to draw comparisons to traditional sports and athletic competition. The parallels helped establish esports’ legitimacy and gave non-gamers a familiar framework for understanding the competition.
As esports became a big business and a lucrative career path, players and teams hired a web of support staff – trainers, coaches and therapists – that mirrored the structure of professional sports. In this vein, a lot of esports injury research has pulled from the training methods of traditional sports.
However, as a scholar of exercise science, I think injury treatment and prevention strategies could be further improved by seeing esports competitors as more like musicians and dancers than football players and basketball players.
Performance optimization and injury research on professional performing artists has existed for centuries, and I think it represents a valuable, untapped resource. That’s because the physical and mental stresses experienced during musical performance have a lot in common with esports competition: long stretches of sitting; small, dexterous hand movements; and performing without the real-time input of a coach.
For example, biomechanics research has found similar patterns of forearm muscle fatigue among esports players and piano players. However, no studies to date have directly compared the two groups.
And what if the interest in joint hypermobility or hand size among performing artists were translated to esport populations? Could popular piano warm-up exercises be effective for esports athletes who use keyboards?
Even research on sports like car racing might offer valuable insights. As with gamers, many people overlook how physically demanding car racing can be – and yes, that includes sitting for extended periods of time.
Prevention and rehabilitation techniques continue to improve. Even Jian, the player who retired in 2020, returned to play for a few splits, or partial seasons, in 2022 and 2023.
In July 2023, “League of Legends” star Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok was relegated to the bench due to cubital tunnel syndrome, an injury that emerges from arm and hand overuse.
Through a treatment plan that included changing his gaming posture and intensive physical therapy, Lee was able to return to play just a month later. He went on to win three consecutive world championships, with his support team helping prevent recurrence of injury throughout each season.
Thanks to his rehabilitation, Lee’s fans will be able to follow his hunt for his fourth “League of Legends” World Championship, which kicks off in October 2026 in the United States.
Sienna Cinti assisted with the research and writing of this article.
Erica D. Henn, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Exercise Science, Temple University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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health and wellness
Millions of mobile gamers prize stress relief over winning
Mobile Gamers Prize Stress: In the school’s car pickup line, five minutes before it starts moving. In the doctor’s office waiting room for an appointment that you’ve been heavily anticipating. In bed, just before going to sleep. In these transitional moments, many people reach for their phones — not to scroll, but to play.
Millions of mobile gamers prize stress relief over winning
(Sheeka Sanahori) In the school’s car pickup line, five minutes before it starts moving. In the doctor’s office waiting room for an appointment that you’ve been heavily anticipating. In bed, just before going to sleep. In these transitional moments, many people reach for their phones — not to scroll, but to play.
According to a June 2026 survey of more than 128,000 KashKick mobile gamers, playing a mobile game is more than a way to pass the time. Stress relief and relaxation are the top reasons respondents play, beating out entertainment and fun. As KashKick reports, for many people, this means mobile games are less a simple distraction and more a coping mechanism for the daily stress of life.
A quick reset for life’s transitional moments
Most respondents identify as women, and 60% live in households that earn less than $50,000 per year. In the ranking of their reasons for playing, stress relief and relaxation topped the list, with boredom relief, entertainment and fun close behind.
The ranking reads less like a profile of a gaming hobby and more like a profile of a coping behavior.
More than half of the respondents play games daily or multiple times a day. When they reach for a mobile game, about 53% of the time it’s for a short session—usually 30 minutes or less. Where and when people play tells its own story: 58% play in bed before going to sleep and 40% play in the bathroom. These are private, solitary moments, not the times people typically plan entertainment into their day.
Coping with stress by gaming
To understand why respondents play games for stress relief more than for fun, it helps to look at who they are. Among those surveyed, 19% say they’re unemployed or looking for work, and 60% live in lower-income households. There are likely some areas of their life where they must make every dollar stretch to cover the things they need.
The survey findings coincide with research from the American Psychological Association’s 2025 Stress in America report. According to the report, 18% of men and 22% of women under age 65 rate their stress level at eight or higher on a scale of one to 10. Although the KashKick survey didn’t measure stress, respondents are mostly women and fall within the age and income groups the APA found to carry the most stress.
The APA’s report also describes loneliness as a major strain for Americans. The KashKick survey didn’t measure feelings of isolation, but 55% prefer to play alone, and 60% rarely or never discuss their gameplay with friends or family.
Overall, the survey identifies a group of people who have found a routine, low-cost approach to cope with stress. They’re not necessarily there to get the highest score. They’re playing a mobile game to help them navigate a day that, with all of life’s to-dos and challenges, could quickly feel overwhelming.
Methodology
The KashKick Gaming Habits Survey was fielded from June 8, 2026, through Aug. 10, 2026, among KashKick members in the United States who play mobile games. The Gaming Habits Survey was available to all members on KashKick’s Surveys page post-profile completion. The survey received 128,218 total responses, with question-level response counts ranging from approximately 109,793 to 128,218 depending on attrition. All findings describe KashKick mobile gamers and should not be interpreted as representative of U.S. mobile gamers overall. Industry and stress context references publicly available data from the American Psychological Association, Statista, and Newzoo.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
SOURCE:
KashKick
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LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS used GDC 2026 to spotlight the next phase of its “Original IP Initiative,” outlining a proprietary development framework aimed at building high-end, original AAA games for a global audience. The studio said the initiative, first introduced at GDC 2025, now includes active development of a new globally driven blockbuster title and a more formalized system for shaping future intellectual property.
A major part of that strategy came from newly appointed Creative Director Feng Zhu, who described a structured approach to original game creation centered on strong visual identity, disciplined worldbuilding, and repeatable production methods. During his GDC session, Zhu introduced the studio’s “90:10 Balance” philosophy, where 90% of a game is grounded in real-world references like authentic locations, historical context, and realistic proportions, while the remaining 10% is used to deliver the creative hooks, tension, and storytelling elements that define the title’s identity.
LIGHTSPEED also emphasized its investment in production infrastructure, including a purpose-built in-house motion capture facility in Los Angeles. Led by Motion Capture Studio Manager Kristin Gallagher, the studio says the facility is designed to handle complex performance capture with greater efficiency, supported by a custom API and advanced technical pipeline developed jointly by teams in LA and across the company’s global network.
The announcement reinforces LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS’ broader ambition to grow beyond service and co-development work into a stronger portfolio of original blockbuster properties. Best known as a co-developer of PUBG MOBILE and the developer of the upcoming Last Sentinel, the company says its long-term focus is on delivering cinematic, culturally resonant game experiences built for players worldwide.
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