GameRefinery has published a large study of the American match-3 market as of May 2021. The company talked about the main trends, the highest-grossing projects and the most important mechanics. Also, for the first time in several years, the top 5 highest-grossing games have changed in the genre — Project Makover got into it. In just a few months, it has become one of the biggest hits on the match-3 market.Key data
Match-3 remains the highest-grossing mobile game subgenre in the US.
- It accounted for 16% of the total revenue of the American App Store.Among the most popular mechanics that most affect revenue are: renewable live events, rewards for participating in events, non-renewable live events and in-game purchases available for a limited time.
- The most popular mechanics in the match-3 genre and the degree of their impact on revenue
Also, now almost no match-3 game is complete without social functions (for example, guild systems).
- According to GameRefinery, this is a natural consequence of market development.The main reasons why people play match-3 are escapism by solving puzzles, self—expression through customization and interior decoration, as well as the ability to achieve certain results.
- The main motivators of players in match-3 (comparison of indicators of Candy Crush Saga with other games of the genre)
Main trends
Old hits like Candy Crush Saga and Toy Blast, although experimenting with live events, still rely on traditional mechanics and focus on core gameplay.
- However, the so-called “new wave” of match-3 games, like Gardenscapes and Homescapes, has proven the effectiveness of using meta-gameplay.The most striking example of a new wave of projects is Project Makover, in which a lot of emphasis is placed on meta (arranging a room and transforming characters with the help of make—up) and narrative.
- Chart of the box office of old and new titles in the genre
Some games concentrate on not very complex meta and core gameplay and almost completely abandon plot elements, but they still become big hits.
- This happened, for example, with Royal Match, which has become one of the highest-grossing games in the match-3 genre over the past year.About two years ago, most of the new match-3s used collapse mechanics, when it was necessary to simply tap on nearby blocks to destroy them.
- However, over the past year and a half, this trend has completely come to naught, and now the games have returned to more traditional mechanics familiar from the Candy Crush series.A graph showing the disappearance of the trend for collapse mechanics among the highest-grossing games of the genre
Highest – grossing games
Candy Crush Saga leads the top 5 games by revenue – it controls 16.74% of the entire match-3 market.
- Next are Homescapes (11.24%), Project Makeover (10.57%), Gardenscapes (7.91%) and Toon Blast (7.18%).The situation for downloads is slightly different.
- Project Makeover generates 45.51% of all downloads in the match-3 genre on iOS in the USA. The second and third places are occupied by Homescapes and Candy Crush Saga by a large margin — their share is 12.82% and 11.27%, respectively.Top 5 games in the match-3 genre in the American App Store and their share in revenue and downloads
The main launches on the match-3 market over the past year are Project Makeover, Royal Match and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells.
- At the same time, the above games are quite different from each other in mechanics.
- For example, Project Makeover is based on the traditional match-3 gameplay, and Royal Match offers a much faster and more responsive gameplay (you can perform new combinations here without even waiting for the animation to finish).