Last July, ‘Royal Match’ surpassed ‘Candy Crush’ to become the mobile game with the highest monthly sales in the world. In the month of July, Royal Match surpassed Candy Crush in number of downloads. I thought it was number one, but according to Data.ai, which tracks usage trends in the Apple and Android app stores, it has been number one in monthly sales for five consecutive months since July.
Royal Match is a match-3 puzzle game released as the first title by Dream Games, a game startup in Turkye Istanbul. Match 3 is played by matching 3 blocks or designs of the same shape to eliminate them. Likewise, Candy Crush, a match-3 puzzle game, is owned by Activision Blizzard, a game company under Microsoft (MS), the world’s second-largest company in market capitalization. The first work of a marginal game startup beat Microsoft’s flagship product.
In this competition reminiscent of the fight between ‘David and Goliath’, how did David in the Royal Match defeat Candy Crush like Goliath? The Financial Times (FT) said, “The mobile game industry is dominated by games that make a lot of money in a short period of time with a low budget, but Royal Match was able to achieve great growth thanks to its focus on quality and popularity.” A venture capitalist who invested in Dream Games commented to the FT, “Mobile games often have poor graphics, but Royal Match has high-end graphics and detailed settings.”
Dream Games is also famous for aggressive updates. According to market research company Sensor Tower, 50 new levels have been added to each update since the game was launched in February 2021, and 100 new levels have been added to each update since July of the same year. Since then, the upward trend has been steep, maintaining a cycle of releasing 200 levels per month. What works is that new levels are released without users getting bored.
The secret is to sincerely pursue the original fun of the game, but does it seem too simple? This is a secret that is not easy to follow in today’s market, where game companies that make money quickly by making games and running away with them are mushrooming. I hope that many game companies like David will appear in Korea as well.
