AppMagic, a service for mobile app market intelligence has released a new digest covering the important news in the puzzle game genre.

In one of their latest blog posts, AppMagic did a thorough overview of the puzzle game’s dynamics, as well as taking a closer look at the Merge-2 and Match-3 sub-genres of the game.

They have also highlighted the connections between revenue spikes and events, sorting those and analyzing the factors that led to improving the game’s performance. The four main points from the digest can be summarized with:

Industry Dynamics Overview

When researching, AppMagic looked into the revenue/download figures of both the Merge-2 and Match-3 sub-genre.

Merge-2

For Merge-2 type puzzle games, Merge-2’s revenue surged by +10%, outpacing post-holiday growth, while downloads saw a modest +2% rise, a stark contrast to January’s +32% jump.

Match-3

During the peak season for casual games, which is the winter holidays, revenue for Match-3 remained stable, but it experienced an 11% drop around March 2024.

Downloads also dropped by 27%, but it did bounce back to pre-holiday figures as time passed.

Insights

AppMagic has discovered various interesting insights in relation to recent events available in the puzzle games genre, which may hint at a trend forming in the Western market.

Fishing

In February, a notable reskin of an event from Merge Mansion called ‘Harrison’s Big Catch’ was held in Gossip Harbor.

AppMagic noted that many similar types of fishing events have been seen on the Asian Match-3 market, which means there’s a high chance that such events are becoming trendy in the Western market in the upcoming months.

Complementary Events

When researching Match-3 puzzle games, AppMagic has noted a rise in complimentary events used for the Scapes Game.

Complimentary events are designed to enhance specific metrics of a ‘main event’, such as boosting player engagement by offering extra rewards for milestones or accelerating progress.

When looking at one of the complimentary events, which is the ‘Explorers Race’ in Gardenscapes, the event showed a 26% revenue spike during its first launch.

Dragon’s Nest Event Relaunch

Lastly, they studied the relaunch of the popular ‘Dragon’s Nest’ Event in Royal Match, which previously has shown a huge 42% spike in revenue.

This time, the team for Royal Match launched on Friday, keeping the same duration of 10 days, allowing the event to cover two weekends and trying to attract more players on off-days.

Conclusion and Takeaways

From the research, AppMagic concluded the following factors which make a puzzle game more successful:

• Short competitive events boost user engagement.
• Complementary events heighten interest in core gameplay or main events.
• Introducing new, random-based event mechanics may add novelty, enhancing engagement and revenue.

This digest is a small part of their full report on Puzzle Games. To find the full Puzzle Games Digest, you can contact their email address [email protected], and get the full report for free.