The colorful mobile game Candy Crush has the reputation of being particularly popular with mothers. On the other hand, “real gamers” tend to smile at it. But some might stop laughing when they learn that a mom is on the verge of securing $125,000 with Candy Crush.
Note: The cover image is an icon image.
There’s a championship in Candy Crush? Kind of like that. King, the developer behind the well-known mobile game, wanted to break into the world of esports in 2020 with the “Candy Crush All Stars” event. “Candy Crush Saga” with reality star Khloé Kardashian followed in September 2021.
Now, almost 2 years later, a new “All Stars” event has been introduced. This is a tournament in which players from several American and European countries can participate. The tournament started on March 23rd.
The special thing is that the participants do not face each other personally. All Stars is an in-game event where players can earn points while playing normally. Whoever has collected more points at the end of a round than the competition moves on to the next round.
The top 10 Candy Crushers will be invited to the finals on May 25th in London where they will compete for a $250,000 prize pool. The winner goes home with $125,000, the equivalent of almost €114,000.
Also in the running for the prize money is a mother of three from the USA who didn’t even realize she was taking part in a real tournament.
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Who is the participant? Erryn Rhoden is a mother of three who runs a roofing business with her husband in Ohio. She is also one of the top “Candy Crush” players in the USA.
In an interview with the site Kotaku, the 48-year-old explained that she used to play PvP games and was very happy to flatten her opponents. When she stopped, Candy Crush filled the void: It satisfied her urge to win without making her feel like harming others or inciting anger.
How did mom get into the tournament? Rhoden has been playing Candy Crush for about 10 years now and has mastered around 11,000 of the almost 14,000 levels during this time. As a proud Free2Play player, she always ignored the pop-ups that are supposed to tempt players to spend money.
They hardly pay any attention to the content of the ads. So she probably once accidentally pressed “Yes” instead of “No”, explains the 48-year-old Kotaku. A week later it was said that she had qualified. But she didn’t really know what she was participating in.
48-year-old mom dominates tournament
How is she doing? Since Candy Crush is a regular part of Rhodes’ routine and she often plays late into the night, she managed to rack up tons of points along the way. Without realizing it, she left the competition far behind.
She only found out afterwards that there were “wild card” rounds for players who couldn’t qualify for the next round right away.
From time to time, the 48-year-old would receive a notification when she reached a new milestone: completing the quarter-finals and making it to the semi-finals. At this point, she texted her son to ask what a $250,000 prize pool actually was. He explained that it’s all about the grand total – and the winner gets $125,000.
Rhoden’s son Xane is an esports enthusiast himself and is considered one of the best “Meta Knight” players in Super Smash Bros 4. He shared his mother’s story on Twitter and wrote that she was currently leading the rankings in the semifinals of the tournament.
The post garnered nearly 3 million views and over 55,000 likes. Speaking to Kotaku, the mother-son duo explained that Xane took over his mother’s chores for the weekend so she could focus on Candy Crush.
That’s only fair, after all, she used to drive him to his Smash tournaments. Especially since she is the reason why he became a gamer anyway: “He grew up with video games and yelling at people over a headset,” said Rhoden.
On Saturday, April 22nd, the third and final semi-final round ends. If Rhoden can win that, she’ll be in the final in London. Given the prize money, she’s probably even considering whether it’s worth giving up her F2P status because you can buy all kinds of boosts in Candy Crush with real money.
Twitch streamer Pokimane still has to practice before she can keep up with Rhoden:
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