A google game with a monthly revenue of 70 million yuan

This Beijing company has been dormant for 10 years and has created a google game with a monthly revenue of 70 million yuan.Beijing JoyCastle finally made a product in its tenth year of establishment.

Its new synthetic elimination product “Matching Story” was launched overseas in November last year, and has gradually stabilized at around 150 on the list since April this year. According to SensorTower data, “Matching Story” ranked 29th on the overseas revenue list and 18th on the revenue growth list in May, with monthly revenue exceeding 70 million yuan.

Referring to the growth path of the overseas hit “Gossip Harbor”, synthesis/elimination products will enter a stable period after they start. Now “Matching Story” has not seen a decline in the past three months, and it may further exceed the ceiling in the future.

The current synthesis/elimination games are not easy to make, and even McGiver has not been able to make another breakthrough in its advantageous areas. “Matching Story” seems to have a different understanding and is unexpectedly able to seize a chance in this red ocean market.

The shell of Merge-3, the core of match-3

In fact, “Matching Story” is not the first game to try the “Match 3 + Merge-3” gameplay.

In September 2020, Futureplay launched a game “Merge Garden” that combines these two gameplays. During the subsequent operation of the game, it has also undergone multi-faceted iterations in gameplay and plot. By 2023, the monthly revenue will exceed 30 million. RMB.

The difference between the two can be seen from the game naming. “Matching Story” chooses to use match-3 as the main gameplay, while “Merge Garden” takes Merge-3 gameplay as its core. In “Matching Story”, the synthetic gameplay plays more of a role in connecting gameplay, which is similar to the common dress-up content in match-3+ games.

1. Cover both gameplay audiences at the same time

It’s not that there were no games that used match-3 as a means of attracting traffic in the past, but it was more often used in heavy categories, such as SLG “Puzzles & Survival”, the representative work of Sanqi Interactive Entertainment’s transformation. In comparison, synthesis/elimination games tend to try lighter types, such as the classic dice pulling in “Fantasy Garden”, or the line drawing to save the dog head, ASMR, ring decryption, etc. used in “Dragonscapes Adventure”. This kind of secondary gameplay was later tried by many products.

However, the match-3 gameplay is an important part of Matching Story, and subsequent players will not be easily filtered out during the game. The mini match-3 levels are more like “trial equipment” in the gameplay, which is still somewhat different from the conventional secondary gameplay. And thanks to the overlap of users between the synthetic gameplay and the match-3 gameplay, the synthetic gameplay will not become a filter for filtering users.

• 2.Simplify the Merge-3 gameplay

Matching Story intentionally reduces synthesis efficiency. Players have a greater demand for synthetic elements, and in order to quickly obtain large amounts of resources, players are more frequently directed to experience match-3 gameplay.

3.Commercialization around match-3

Compared with “Merge Garden”, which also integrates the match-3 gameplay, “Matching Story” significantly improves the benefits of the match-3 gameplay.

Most games like “Royal Match” will add a bonus link during the settlement phase to provide additional rewards based on the number of remaining steps. In “Matching Story”, the remaining steps in the match-3 gameplay have nothing to do with the rewards, so players can choose to skip the settlement screen directly. “Matching Story” would rather sacrifice the exhilaration of the gameplay itself, but also hopes to ensure that the overall game rhythm is fast and smooth enough.

Overall, “Matching Story” is a product that competes with match-3+ games. Whether Merge-3 still has market opportunities may not be so important. What truly reflects “Matching Story” is its design skills in match-3 gameplay.

Deep gameplay integration provides new ideas

The top position in the match-3 market has not changed for a long time, but new products still have the opportunity to get a share of the pie.

According to AppMagic’s summary, the revenue of the Match 3 category increased by 20% year-on-year last year, and the number of downloads also increased by 25% year-on-year. The article summarizes the analysis and states that new products can stand out in the market by “changing the typical audience for this type of game.”

Space Ape released the car-repair-themed match-3+ game “Chrome Valley Customs” last year, which peaked at over 70 on the U.S. iOS best-selling list. Game manufacturers quickly followed up on the market with the same theme. Hutch Games also released the match-3 game “Forza Customs” last year, and Diandian Interactive also tested “Truck Star Match”. Among them, “Chrome Valley Customs” has already experienced weak revenue, while “Truck Star Match” is still gradually gaining volume.

But this is not necessarily so reliable from a long-term operational perspective. Tianlong Interactive Entertainment’s Merge-2 game “Adventure Island Merge” has only remained on the top 200 best-selling games on the U.S. iOS for 2 months. The revenue of Diandian Interactive’s business simulation game “Dragonscapes Adventure” has been declining for nearly a year.

Matching Story and Merge Garden are not the only games that have taken this path. Last year, Playrix tested “Merge Heart” and also integrated the order task system of the Merge-2 game “Love & Pies” based on the Merge-3 gameplay . It also weakened the decoration and plot content and relied on the gameplay to drive players to advance the main line.

The integration of gameplay can also play a role in “changing the audience.” Taking “Merge Garden” as an example, relevant data shows that the proportion of male users of this game has reached 44.31%, which is significantly larger than the 13.54% of similar products “Merge Dragons” and the 17.41% of “Evermerge”.

After the integration of gameplay, “Matching Story”‘s retention performance is not inferior to other match-3+ games. According to SensorTower’s data, the data of Second Retention and Seven Retention are better than those of “Project Makeover” and “Gardenscapes”, and the long-term retention is also comparable to “Gardenscapes”.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to tell whether “Merge&Match” will focus on synthesis gameplay like “Merge Garden”. But at least it can be seen that the birth of “Matching Story” was not decided at once, but was iteratively based on previous projects.

Perhaps only after going through learning, trial and error, and iterative upgrades like “Matching Story” can market opportunities fall into your hands.