GameRefinery: The match-3 genre is responsible for 21% of the entire App Store box office in the USA

The main thing:

• match-3 is responsible for 21% of the entire App Store mobile sales register in the USA (this is the most profitable subgenre on iOS);
• in the top 200 of the highest-grossing match-3, most of the games (81%) are from two years old;
• the second and third “waves” of match-3 brought a complex meta to the genre, which allowed them to successfully compete with the games of the first “wave”;
• a necessary condition for the success of match-3 in GameRefinery is considered to be constantly running live events;
• The main new mechanics of match-3 today are battle passes, guilds, cooperative tasks and guild wars;
• Along with the new meta, the players also got a new motivation to play match-3.

Market situation

Analysts call Candy Crush Saga, Toon Blast, Gardescapes, Homescapes and Candy Crush Soda Saga the main match-3s on the market (hereinafter we are talking about iOS in the USA for Q1 2020). The Candy Crush series accounts for 1/4 of the entire niche. However, the share of King games is falling, and Playrix products is growing rapidly: in annual terms, Candy Crush Saga lost 3.5 percentage points, and Gardescapes gained 7.6.

The match-3 market is very oversaturated. At the same time, among the successful titles (those that are in the box office top 200 within the niche), there are almost no young ones that were released less than two years ago. This is also true for the Top 100. The bulk of them are proven classics, like Toy Blast and Fishdom.

All these games in GameRefinery are divided into three generations or “waves”. The first is the classic match—3, as a rule, without complex meta and released before 2016. The second and third “waves” are characterized by new possibilities for the genre (for example, construction). The difference between the second and third generation is temporary. The last “wave” is the match-3, which began to enter the market in 2018.

Innovations are the key to success

Analysts write that today the following features are becoming increasingly important in match-3:

• ongoing gaming events, in which users regularly receive new content;
• battle passes that open up additional bonuses for the game to players for IAP;
• social mechanics (guilds, cooperative tasks and quests for guilds).

GameRefinery does not mention whether there are games in which you can find all the mechanics at once. At the same time, one of the graphs presented by the company shows, for example, that there are a lot of meta-mechanics in the Watchmaker at once: there is a battle pass, a daily quest, and a subscription.

Another cash game, Sweet Escape: Build a Bakery, has rich social functionality. You can join groups of players in it. As a member of the team, the player can communicate with other team members and ask for hearts. There is also an opportunity to participate in a competition between teams.

Motivation of players

GameRefinery has its own motivational model. According to her, each genre has its own profile, revealing why users play it. A profile is a diagram on which 12 motivational drivers (reasons for playing) are marked. For example, the dominant driver of match-3 is the desire to think and solve problems.

Each game that the company analyzes also has its own profile. And it can be very different from the genre profile if the game uses any new unusual mechanics.

In Candy Crush Saga, the profile almost duplicates the profile of the entire match-3 genre:

But the profile of the games of the second “wave” is much different:

Simply put, players, for example, in Homescapes have more reasons to play than players in Candy Crush Saga. GameRefinery generally believes that the appearance of such games has increased the audience of match-3 players: there are people who like not only to solve puzzles, but also to repair their virtual home.

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The original research can be found at this link.

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