How to crack the Match-3 code — Part II
Deconstructing the evolution of the industry’s biggest Match-3 titles
Editor’s note: This is the second instalment of UX expert Om Tandon’s analysis of the evolution of the Match-3 category of casual games. For part one, click here.
The Match-3 category has arrived at a crossroads. This multi-part analysis unpacks the maturing player behaviour and deepening game design that has changed the Match-3 landscape, and divided it between classic and meta-focused games, ruled by the Kings and Playrix’s of the world. In this part, I take a deep dive into the features of Candy Crush Saga and Property Brothers, and analyze how they’re evolving their strategies.
What is happening in the classic Match-3 ringside?
King is hard at work defending its legacy and turf, rejuvenating & re-inventing its long reigning and hugely popular classic Match-3 franchise, Candy Crush Saga.
Candy Crush Saga today is unarguably a very different beast than its original avatar 8 years ago.
King, reading the current meta trends, has successfully introduced a multitude of secondary meta goals and events, which actually do more than just re-invent the wheel by refreshing game’s core and user experience. This depth is evident in their new level designs too.
Below you can see a variety of events and meta goals that players could pursue while crushing candies.
- Social proof & community engagement events around real players. Note: most women featured are over 35 years old, implying this demographic is super engaged. This raises a question: is adoption among younger audiences declining?
- Time limited event levels like climbing up a bean stalk
- Leaderboard races against a limited group of friends (A small pool to ensure players have a good chance of ranking high with less effort. Example: Rank 8 out of 20 is much more motivating than rank 8000 out of 10,000 players)
- Scroll collection events to earn special offers
These features are soft bodied versions of the gameplay seen in midcore and hardcore games, but the question is: are these stop gap measures enough?
Obstacles to overcome
While the addition of these meta goals is refreshing and a welcome change, there might be some issues as newer mechanics & features are incrementally added over time.
- Lack of variation & sufficiently distinct rewards
While an army of different event types and reward features create variation in how players experience the game, creating short, mid and long term progression arcs in Candy Crush Saga (CCS), the drawback is that the rewards players receive seem to be highly repetitive.
The images above shows different rewards a player can get for completing different events and meta goals in CCS and it’s quite obvious at a glance that the majority of them are all too familiar boosters or bundles.
All rewards are boosters & all boosters feel “kind of” the same in Candy Crush Saga
Don’t get me wrong, boosters on their own are great, I especially love all the cool fireworks and animation effects they trigger (which are hallmark of King games and nobody does them better than King!) But, players become all too familiar with these boosters as they get them for free as samplers in daily rewards (spinning wheel), and many like the chocolate bomb or jelly fish commonly appear on the game board as part of the cascades. In fact, when players can easily anticipate what they are going to get at the end of their tasks, it dilutes the excitement of the reward.
In CCS, players get more or less the same rewards whether they grind for short, mid and long term goals like events or collection features. This can massively dilute the value of rewards over time.
The chart below demonstrates the impact of predictable rewards on the dopamine surge of users. When the reward is predictable, overall dopamine levels are lower.
2. Lack of rarity systems in consumables or boosters
Rewards in CCS at the moment lack a rarity system. While consumables can be a good reward system, at present in CCS many lack a distinct identity or rare availability like the “Mighty Eagle” in the original Angry Birds.
Do you remember how hard it was to unlock the “Mighty Eagle” in the original Angry Birds? It was a booster that had real identity because of its rarity and all encompassing power. None of the boosters in CCS command that kind of identity. Combining this with the frequency with which they are dropped decreases their perceived value, especially for veteran players.
3. Archaic single currency economy limits rewards to strictly “boosters”
Being one of the oldest Match-3 games out there, CCS is based on a single premium currency economy (gold bars). This is part of the reason why rewards for almost every single action in the game boil down to boosters. In comparison, every new meta entrant has at least 2 currencies in addition to boosters that add more depth and variety to reward distribution and grinding aspects of the game. See the screenshots below.
Consumables vs Currencies
Having mentioned both above, let’s look at the pros and cons of using currencies and consumables as rewards systems:
Courtesy: Evtim Treknov
While both have their pros and cons, like subjective value and inflation, having a wide variety of features along short term, mid term and long term progression arcs requires you to give players more choice and variety. A reward system needs to be able to scale well, either through rarity (common, rare, or legendary) or variety of currency. Both have good potential for improvement in CCS.
King will most likely continue scaling meta goals along progression arcs, however they’ll likely struggle to scale the reward system due to lack of rarity and being stuck with a single currency economy that has the potential to dilute player motivation.
Only time will tell how players appreciate these efforts in the long run, but given King is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to redefine & preserve classic Match 3, new entrants in Classic Match 3 are still going to have a tough time in the race to the top as the barrier to entry remains high.
Now, let’s see what’s happening in the meta Match-3 ringside
Reaching the top of this peak is also a steep climb if not impossible, given the aggressive dominance of early adopters and the genre becoming a hotbed of M&A activity.
Meta Match-3: Barriers to entry
- Hyper competitive nature of early adopters like Playrix with their aggressive marketing & UA war chest. Example: A recent spike in UA spend by Playrix’s competitors brought out a more than proportional response.
Don’t poke the Russian Bear, as noted by Deconstructor of Fun
Source: Deconstructor of fun
Chances are, if you frequently play mobile games or browse Facebook, you will have seen the ad below:
Based on Playrix’s aggressive responses, it is clear any future attempts might be met with similar counter measures.
2. AppLovin’s opting for vertical integration between a data analytics platform and game studios (Belka, Firecraft) created a strong alliance that marries the industry’s 360 degree wide panoramic data with ability to execute learnings in it’s own games. This is a powerful strategy which might pay huge dividends.
3. Latest acquisition of Peak games (Toon Blast, Toy Blast) by Zynga adds more muscle and scalability for Peak via Zynga’s extensive network, especially in the areas of data science as mentioned by Frank Gibeau.
If the picture above looks bleak, fear not. There is always a way around as developers venture into uncharted territories — mixing, mashing & experimenting to crack the Match 3 code…
In the analysis below, we will look at how the pie is getting divided even further, and how far the meta in Match-3 can be pushed when combined with IP and audiences that fall outside the classic Match-3 realm. One such example is Property Brothers.
Property Brothers: Genre blending for a more matured audience
Making its way slowly but noticeably up the top grossing puzzle games chart is Storm 8’s Property Brothers Home Design.
Source: Sensor Tower
Storm 8 history
Property Brothers from Storm 8 is another take on “Match-3 with meta” which has been silently climbing the charts. While it has all the ingredients of the latest trends of decorative meta, narrative-driven gameplay, and a collapse mechanic core, it is really going after a different audience than Homescapes, Gardenscapes and Lily’s Garden. While all these games have casual fiction based cartoon narrative style, the emphasis in Property Brothers is more on realistic decoration and fact driven narrative in real world settings.
Property brothers goes after a more realistic decoration meta, combining it with a popular real world IP
The IP factor
Property Brothers home design is based on a very popular reality television Canadian TV show where twin brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott use their technical expertise to help potential home buyers renovate houses to their liking within a specific budget. On that note:
Despite attempts in the past, Match-3 and IP games have not seen chart busting success at a massive scale. IP based puzzle games like Frozen Adventures and Temple Run have seen limited success in the Match-3 genre.
While IP and franchise collaborations have a chance of higher organic download from fans, do not mistake it for a formula for success. Having worked for the last 15+ years on numerous chart busting IP led games (Star Trek, Ice Age, My Little Pony, Hardy Boys, Wizard of OZ, Alice in Wonderland etc), I can tell you with absolute certainty that IP alone will not carry your game to top of the charts.
Core gameplay needs to shine and cohesively blend with the IP universe, to engage franchise & non-franchise players alike to be able to reap rich rewards.
Property Brothers deconstruction: The fusion fiesta
With Property Brothers, Storm 8 is going after the hugely popular Glu Mobile’s Home Design audience who like realistic home decoration. Perhaps even eating Glu mobile’s lunch? ;)
Source: Sensor Tower
Data above shows how Property Brother has been slowly closing the gap on Design Home since its arrival in 2019 to the top grossing chart.
Storm 8 did its homework well when they shortlisted this IP. It’s a franchise hugely popular with women & baby boomers.
The above research into the demographics of Property Brothers (the TV show) indicates its popularity with women (47%), millennials (age: 26–40 years) & baby boomers (age: 45+ years).
Now, let’s compare that data above with GameRefinery’s “Thinker” player archetype in meta Match-3 games:
Source: GameRefinery
Property Brothers’ IP audience overlaps very nicely with the demographics of classic and meta Match-3 games, which makes it a good fit for the genre.
Renovating the core loop
Property Brothers takes all the successful ingredients of meta Match-3 titles, like well grounded characters, strong narrative, and decoration challenges, and tailors them to a more realistic art style and decoration-driven audience.
Property Brothers use the well established mental model of a TV show setting for fans while keeping the on-boarding simple & engaging for non franchise players
Property Brothers’ core loop revolves around putting players in their own shoes and introducing them to different clients. The player’s job is to decorate these properties using an aspirational blueprint vision which offers players some guidance but does not hinder their creative choices.
So far it sounds the same as other decoration meta games, but there is a difference.
Property Brothers offers far more choice in decoration meta and refreshed UX as players are not linearly restricted to just upgrading one home or one garden. The game offers a plethora of different homes to decorate for different clients. From living rooms to bedrooms to baby nurseries, there is plenty of variation too.
The narration
Narration is a big part of Property Brothers, introducing players to various characters and clients. The second big differentiation is that the narration is not purely fictional, as there are nuggets of interior design knowledge interspersed in the dialogues which is quite educational.
This mashing of interior design facts with narrative fiction naturally appeal to players who love interior design and this genre.
Match-3 core mechanics: Collapse gameplay
In part one of the series, we touched on the prevailing trend of new Match-3 games with meta launching and finding more success with collapse over swipe mechanics in the last 2 years. Property Brothers is another example following this trend.
The game not only has a collapse core but surprisingly has no player progression or trophy level, which are common in other Match-3 games. The player’s progress is measured by the puzzle level they are on, and more importantly the number of client jobs they have completed, which further reinforces the fact that:
Meta Match-3 games use Match-3 just as means to an end to make the player go after more satisfying goals of decoration challenges.
The Achilles heel of “collapse” games?
When designed well, collapse mechanics help reduce player effort (mental & tactical) resulting in session time regulation, but they can have an inherent game design issue — “Board Stalemate”.
If a player ends up with a multitude of wrong moves, it can result in a board stalemate situation where an area of the board may turn stale due to lack of color matches and could prevent players from clearing the board.
So, how can this be prevented? Successful collapse games try to minimize this stalemate situation by creating a lot of random “super gems” that give players the ability to potentially open up the board if moves are not possible, which may come down to level design and fine tuning as well.
The images above and below show how some of the most successful collapse games deal with this issue. Blockbuster collapse games like Lily’s Garden use a bigger board size, while Toon Blast doesn’t typically introduce hard levels until players have surpassed 100+ levels, grounding players well into the mechanics before they hit a barrier.
Property Brothers, to a great extent, use a combination of these “stalemate” breakers to alleviate player friction:
1) Bigger board sizes
2) Generous with dropping random “Super Gems” like bombs, dynamites and barrels that can be used by players to blast big chunk of blocks. Players can also strategize, blasting many of these super gems next to each other creating more powerful blast combinations.
3) Hard levels typically appear only after crossing 60+ threshold
But…Did Storm 8 ditch swipe for collapse with Property Brothers?
What makes the swipe vs collapse debate even more interesting is that before launching Property Brothers, Storm 8 already had an identical game with the same decoration meta as Property Brothers home design — but with the swipe Match-3 mechanics.
Property Brothers was launched with the exact same decoration meta & similar narrative style but the developers swapped swipe mechanics for collapse.
Source: Sensor Tower
Looking at the charts, it is evident that the collapse version is finding far more success than its identical swipe cousin on the top grossing charts.
While the jury might not be out on collapse vs swipe debate, this is still a noteworthy observation from a developer’s point of view.
The meta loop & events system
The meta is around interior & exterior decoration but there are some clever additions with a multi-currency approach.
Time limited event designs are super interesting because they extend interior decoration core gameplay to exterior events like pool parties, summer BBQs, and wedding decorations, thereby adding more depth to (now commonplace) home decoration themes.
These events makes players feel smarter as they can relate to being a professional decorator compared to just being an amateur home decorator in the core gameplay.
Time limited currencies, like coins and tokens, are also clever additions.
Regular coins can only be spent for interior decoration in regular gameplay (they cannot be used in events), while time limited tokens can be used exclusively in a particular event. This means that events have double value: the player is farming coins for regular gameplay while making progress on the active event front. This naturally incentivizes players towards playing events as they can make good progress in regular decoration gameplay despite the outcome of the events themselves.
Conclusion & 2020 trends for Match-3 with meta games
- The barrier to entry is high in classic Match-3, as King has started pivoting its flagship Candy Crush Saga towards a more meta goal driven franchise attempting to evolve the genre.
- On the meta Match-3 side too, the barrier is going to be high due to early adopters like Playrix adopting an assertive UA stand. Vertical integration strategy by AppLovin & recent M&A activity by Zynga (Peak Games) shows clear signs of cash infusion for these small studios, thereby making them well positioned to defend their turf.
- The key to gaining a foothold in this genre can be in found in new audiences from other casual games and marrying the gameplay to meta Match-3, like fashion, dress up, cooking, farming, and narrative fiction.
- We’ll likely see a move away from archaic single currency economies and reliance on consumables alone, to be better positioned to scale rewards as meta features pile up.
Experimentation, finding new audiences and genre blending are going to be the key to evolving the genre & reaping rich rewards, despite high barriers to entry.
Update, December 01, 2020 — Prediction validation!
After publishing my two articles in April & July 2020, we are seeing a new Meta Match 3 “Project Makeover” launched in November climbing the top grossing charts (#12), combining the meta elements of Fashion, Make up, Dress up and Interior Decoration and finding great success so far appealing to audiences from other casual genre as predicted in this article series. (Looking forward to how it fares, post launch steam!)
More deep dives will be done in subsequent parts of this series, stay tuned! If you want to tell us what you would like to see in future posts, please take this 45 seconds survey HERE!
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