Cracking the Match-3 Code: Dream Games Surpasses $3B in User Spending
Our new piece provides an overview of the Match-3 market dynamics, focusing on Royal Match's breakthrough success and the performance of tier-1, tier-2, and newcomer games.
— by Diana Levintova
Dream Games has reached a new high in user spending, arriving at $3B. As you have probably guessed correctly, nearly 100% of it comes from Royal Match and less than 1% from the runner-up in their portfolio: Royal Kingdom.
Disclaimer: To calculate user spending, we have revised the revenue metric displayed on the app’s page by adding back store fees and inclusive taxes that stores in some countries have to settle before making their payment to a publisher.
Looking at the Match-3 market, we will see that there have been very few changes over quite an extended period of time, with leading games losing their market share rather actively: thus, Candy Crush Saga lost 11% YoY, and Homescapes 13% YoY. On the contrary, Gardenscapes actually went up 22% YoY. Nothing compared to Royal Match, though, whose revenue spiked by 84% in a year. Notably, a major market share change happened in July 2023 when *Royal Match *bested Candy Crush Saga with its monthly revenue numbers—an accomplishment it has firmly stuck to ever since.
We tried to pin down what drove *Royal Match*’s 2023 breakthrough, and here are some of the options that may have had a positive impact on improving the game’s performance:
- Marketing collabs with celebrities. To give you a clear example, in summer 2023, it was reported that Simon Cowell, famous for producing and chairing the jury of such talent shows as The X Factor and Brintain’s Got Talent, is going to participate in the advertising campaign for the game. These advertisements were featured prominently across various media channels, including video-on-demand platforms and social media. As of today, many more celebrities have been saving King Robert in Royal Match ads, including Amanda Holden (Cowell’s co-host on Britain’s Got Talent), Rick Hoffman from Suits, Austin Nichols from One Tree Hill, *Harry Potter*’s Tom Felton, and Kate Flannery and Linda Purl from The Office (US edition).
- Good LiveOps mix. Looking at *Royal Match*’s events, we see two revenue spikes: 43% on July 1 and 78% on July 2. Both of them included the same event combo: Pinata Party, Team Battle, Sky Race, Propeller Madness, the Weekly Contest—and a new event introduced in the middle of June: Hidden Temple, where the players have to clear levels to collect pickaxes, which they can then use to find gems on the field—only to be further rewarded for collecting a certain number of gems.
- Ad creatives’ effect. Looking at the ad creatives page of Royal Match, you will see that several ad campaigns led to a spike in impressions in July, including one of the best-performing Royal Match campaigns of the past year.
Since then, all three leading games have been losing their market share, with Royal Match as the only one still sticking to its plateau numbers. The second-tier Match-3 market players, such as Fishdom, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Project Makeover, and Match Masters, also reached their monthly revenue plateaus a couple of years ago, keeping the performance on the same level ever since.
Overall, looking at the top 5 revenue-makers from the Match-3 market, we will notice that the situation is quite in line with the current market trends, highlighting rather high entry barriers in the industry.
Despite this trend, in 2023, there were two pretty successful newcomers that we discussed in our report on casual gaming for 2023: Chrome Valley Customs and Forza Customs - Restore Cars. Both games, set in the real-life context of car modding, clearly target the male audience, which might be considered quite risky for the typically female-led Match-3 genre (high risk for the high reward, though, right?). While these games performed well initially, they have already started facing a downturn, and their revenue numbers are still expressly behind those of the market leader (over 40 times lower).
Thus, looking at the Match-3 market, it is safe to say that Royal Match was and is a major success. The title managed to overcome the high entry barriers and not only made it to the cozy first-tier bunch of apps but also surpassed the long-time market leader by means of a multifaceted marketing mix. However, the rise through the ranks ends there for the time being, with the market plateauing for Royal Match and second-tier games alike—and, in fact, even experiencing a minor shrinking in the case of the first-tier games. Meanwhile, new entrants, despite their risky strategies targeting non-typical audiences, remain far behind the genre’s leading titles.