Which match-3 are in the greatest demand in the Celestial market, — said Joel Julkunen, head of the game analytics department at GameRefinery. We give a brief version of his material.
The analyst begins the story about the Chinese match-3 market with a brief summary of the American market.
USA
- In the top 500 highest-grossing games in the USA, 11.2% of projects belong to the match-3 genre.
- The most popular (59%) mechanics of combining elements is swap (rearrangement of two adjacent elements).
- 50% of the projects in the genre represented in the chart do not have meta.
- In those match-3s where there is meta, in 28% it comes down to construction, in 14% to character development, and in the remaining 8% of cases to the development of something else or collecting.
- The most popular themes for elements are food and animals
China
- In the top 500 highest-grossing games, 2.6% of projects belong to the match-3 genre. The main reason for such a small number of them is the dominance of role—playing games in the Chinese box office top.
- Of the games presented in the box office chart, 46% were developed outside of China.
- 58% of cash match-3 has construction meta.
- All match-3s from the chart use swap mechanics. There are no successful bubble shooters or collapses in China.
- The most popular topic among the Chinese is animals (41%), match—3 projects about food are much less common (18%) than in the USA.
- The most popular match-3 game in China is Anipop by Happy Elements. It has been among the top twenty highest-grossing games in China for several years. Despite the profitability of the project, there is no meta in it.
- Jelly Blast also stands out. The project was able to get into the box office top after it received a construction meta in December 2018.
- The highest-grossing match-3 of “Western” origin is Homescapes. It is one of the top 100 most earning games in China on iOS.
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