NEW YORK (AP) -- A crush it isn't.
Wall Street is giving King Digital, the company behind the popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga, the cold shoulder in its public trading debut.
King's stock priced at $22.50 on Tuesday, valuing the company at $7.1 billion. But it opened on Wednesday at $20.50, down almost 9%, and lost more ground by midmorning.
King Digital Entertainment PLC, based in Ireland, had $1.88 billion in revenue last year. That's more than 10 times its 2012 revenue of $164.4 million.
Its other top games include Pet Rescue Saga and Farm Heroes Saga. Some analysts have questioned whether King would be able to repeat the success of Candy Crush, which has been far more successful than any of its other games.
This has drawn comparisons to another game maker, Zynga Inc. Zynga had a much-ballyhooed IPO in late 2011, but the company faltered after having trouble transitioning into a mobile company from one whose games are played mostly on a desktop computer.
But Ricardo Zacconi, King's co-founder and CEO, told CNBC Wednesday morning that the company is "not just a one-hit wonder" and pointed out that it has three games in the top 10 on Facebook.
King is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "KING."
By early afternoon Wednesday, the stock was down $2.70, or 12%, at $19.80 per share after trading as low as $19.08 earlier.
