Candy Crush Saga
Shares rank 38 of 45 puzzle games by recommenders
Few recommend it, and mostly sarcastically: it is a well made scourge. Critics say it is preinstalled junkware that reinstalls itself and pushes frequent payments and ads.
Few recommend it, and mostly sarcastically: it is a well made scourge. Critics say it is preinstalled junkware that reinstalls itself and pushes frequent payments and ads.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 29%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Preinstalled, reinstalls itself after updates
“there's a bunch of weird shit like Candy Crush or Copilot or whatever that's just decided to reinstall itself”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Everyone hates OneDrive, Microsofts cloud app that steals and deletes files” “shovelware such as Candy Crush keep getting reinstalled every few updates”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Microsoft isn't removing Copilot from Windows 11, it's just renaming it” “they had craps like Candy crush etc that comes back after large updates”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” - Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account”
- Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Windows 11½”
- Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)”
- Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “The Windows Utility”
- Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Microsoft's "Fix" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating”
Low quality junkware and shovelware
“shovelware such as Candy Crush keep getting reinstalled every few updates”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Microsoft isn't removing Copilot from Windows 11, it's just renaming it” “billion random junkware preinstalled like fucking Candy Crush”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Windows 11½” “Candy Crush is a vacuous waste of anyone's time and money”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Mark Zuckerberg Grilled on Usage Goals and Underage Users at California Trial” - Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “Even Microsoft couldn't make Windows 11 work well on 8GB of RAM”
Pay-to-play with frequent ads
“the candy crush, perpetual enshittification, monetary maximalist approach, usually with negative side effects”
Comment from 25 Jul 2026 in “League of Legends designer shares game design field manual” “changes game play to emulate games like Candy Crush where gamers have to pay every 30 seconds”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “Microsoft raises Xbox prices by up to 43%” “King (Candy Crush etc) and Mojang (Minecraft) are specifically called out as money-makers”
Comment from 6 Jul 2026 in “Resetting Xbox” - Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features”
Other puzzle games people recommend
The four most recommended other puzzle games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outer Wilds | 65 | 7 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
| enclose.horse | 64 | 10 | 86% | 4 | — | Approved |
| The Witness | 60 | 19 | 76% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Braid | 36 | 5 | 88% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Candy Crush SagaThis page | 6 | 15 | 29% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
20 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“billion random junkware preinstalled like fucking Candy Crush”
“Same as with gambling and Candy Crush style games.”
“changes game play to emulate games like Candy Crush where gamers have to pay every 30 seconds”
“the candy crush, perpetual enshittification, monetary maximalist approach, usually with negative side effects”
“It's a scourge, but it's a well made scourge.”
“adding slop like candy crush”
“King (Candy Crush etc) and Mojang (Minecraft) are specifically called out as money-makers”
“at some point Candy Crush of all things(?)”
“things designed to extract money and show another ad every 12 seconds”
“found to have privacy policies on their websites restricting users to 13+”
“Until they started to "optimise" bandwidth. It wasn't a pricing error as subscription price didn't increase.”
“shovelware such as Candy Crush keep getting reinstalled every few updates”
“They are both "Games I didn't ask for, but were preinstalled"”
“windows started bundling with cortana and candy crush”
“Candy Crush is a vacuous waste of anyone's time and money”
“there's a bunch of weird shit like Candy Crush or Copilot or whatever that's just decided to reinstall itself”
“they had craps like Candy crush etc that comes back after large updates”
“Avoid US, UK, etc. That's where the Candy Crush comes with.”
“Did you know Candy Crush is spying on you, too?”
“shoving bullshit like Candy Crush into everyone's start menu”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.