On game development forums, there is often complaining that someone has created their "super genius" game but only earned a few cents on it, and that game developers who make money are just lucky.
Let's compare a game from the top and a game from the 100th place in the puzzle category in the United States to understand if the first one was just lucky, and the 100th is not inferior in quality.
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First Place: Royal Match
The absolute leader in match-3 games and a brilliantly casual game that sets the standard for everyone.
In 2020, it entered one of the most competitive categories and outperformed all major competitors with billions of dollars behind them.
It occupies the first place in all charts and earns $50 million per month. The reasons for this success:
There's a concept called the "Interest Curve," which involves providing players with levels of varying difficulty to engage their emotions and get them addicted to the game. From the first moments, you can feel that the game adapts to your skill level as a match-3 player, gradually increasing difficulty, reaching its peak, and then offering easy levels to relax and enjoy. It's widely believed that the right balance makes a game profitable.
Another critical aspect that makes the game so profitable is retaining and accumulating whales — fans of the game who will stay for months or even years. Meta-gameplay and dozens of different events offered to players throughout the game contribute to this; without them, it would be boring to play the same thing over and over again.
The game's interface, graphics, and levels are all of exceptional quality, and most importantly, there's no visual clutter — everything is clear and understandable to any audience, which is crucial in casual games.
I would call this game the "developer's handbook." Just dive in and explore every corner of it to learn how to create profitable games.
Royal Match Gameplay
I think everyone knows what match-3 gameplay is, but let's take a look:
The game's dynamics are accelerated, and more dopamine boosters and rewards are introduced.
I've never played match-3 games, but I played this one purely for research purposes, and it's worth acknowledging that every time they really managed to draw me into the game for at least half an hour. When you come to your senses, you realize only one thing: Well done, guys!
100th Place: Bubble Shooter
Let's start by acknowledging that being in the 100th place in the puzzle category among 23 000 games is quite good. Let's see the quality of such a game.
It has earned $50 million over time and currently makes $200 000 per month, not including revenue from ads.
Bubble Shooter Gameplay
Here's where it gets interesting:
The graphics look like a game from the '90s, all gray and dull, and the gameplay dynamics are simply terrible. It becomes boring within the first few seconds, and the desire to jump out of the window grows with each minute of this wonderful gameplay. But people play and even pay! Who are they? Cyborgs?
The target audience for such games:
- There is a small segment of the audience that doesn't browse app stores at all.
- Typically, these are people aged 50+ whose children installed Facebook and showed them how to watch stories.
- While scrolling through cake recipes, they stumble upon Bubble Shooter ads.
- They click, install, and genuinely enjoy the game because they've never seen anything better.
- By the way, all of the game's traffic is purely paid; they don't receive organic traffic, confirming the hypothesis described above.
Main Screen of Both Games
The very first page of the game creates the first impression:
Comments are unnecessary here.
They'd say Royal Match was just lucky, as they often do on forums.
How Both Games Make Money
Naturally, the foundation is in-game purchases, albeit with a "couple" of differences.
Royal Match Offers
Here, absolutely all formats are included, presented in a very colorful and juicy implementation that makes you want to click. Special offers appear at precisely the right moment in the game:
By the way, despite the numerous offers in the game, they don't push you to make purchases and don't restrict gameplay for the first ten hours, for sure. It's because the game aims to turn every user into a whale, get them hooked, and then bombard them with challenging, pay-to-win levels. And judging by the revenue, it works.
Bubble Shooter Offers
Here, there are only two offers, to put it mildly, not very appealing:
In short, when it comes to offers, it's all pretty dull, but it suits the cyborgs.
Meta-Gameplay in Royal Match
One of the main retention tools in casual games is the meta-gameplay, which gives players a long-term goal, in this case, upgrading the castle.
Meta-Gameplay in Bubble Shooter
It doesn't exist. The entire point of the game is to pop bubbles endlessly and aimlessly, which is precisely what true cyborgs need.
Now let's move on to the ads found in Adheart.
Royal Match Creatives
Scenes with real people:
The majority of creatives feature scenes with real people enjoying the game. The scenes are very cinematic, with a plot, humor, and an amusing script.
They've really gone all out; you can see they spared no expense.
Mini-Games:
Unlike most games, these are not just ads. These levels genuinely exist in the game, but the funny thing is that, in reality, such mini-games are less interesting than the game's classic gameplay. The creators know this and even added a "Skip" button for these games. And, in reality, it's incredible when the game turns out to be even better than advertised.
Bubble Shooter Creatives
The main thing to praise in Bubble Shooter is the creatives; they are genuinely not bad. They can be divided into three subtypes:
Light exaggeration of gameplay:
It's still popping bubbles in 2D format but with more beautiful and colorful graphics than reality.
Strong exaggeration of gameplay:
Here, they've squeezed the maximum out of the gameplay and added 3D, which is nowhere near reality.
Misleading mini-games:
Naturally, such levels don't exist in the game, and it's all pure bait, but to be honest, there are fewer such creatives, and judging by the performance, the ones with a light exaggeration of gameplay work best.
Conclusion
In game development, everything is quite fair:
- Create a quality game, and there will definitely be results.
- Make a low-quality game, and there's a chance to salvage it all with marketing, as Bubble Shooter does.
- Do everything exceptionally well, and you become a top player.
