Ahmetcan Demirel

When we look at the top games on the charts, the Royal Matches, the Candy Crush Sagas, the Project Makeovers, it’s easy to imagine that their developers must have discovered a secret formula. "It's all in the numbers", we think. "They must have the most perfect roadmap with every step masterfully calculated". But the reality is much messier than that. In truth, the more successful your game becomes, the more you need to fail in order to sustain and even grow that success. Because early success, while still a tremendous feat, often leans heavily on well-known moves: adopting established best practices, leveraging known market behaviors, following paths already proven by others. You can copy, adapt, and execute. And if you do it better or more efficiently, you can thrive to a certain extent. However, once you graduate from that initial […]

We’ve said it before, and unfortunately it keeps getting more true with time: this is the absolute worst moment to launch a new Match-3 game. User acquisition costs are no longer “high”, they’re absurd. The casual puzzle market, particularly Match-3, has turned into a battlefield where only the best-funded and most patient teams can survive. And even those often struggle to do so profitably. We mentioned this fact when we analyzed Dream’s wild Royal Kingdom campaign. It is the most extreme (and recent) symptom of a market pushing studios to try everything to make it work. Imagine having to cast a list that includes LeBron James, Kevin Hart, and Jimmy Fallon despite having arguably the best switcher engine in the market… While it’ll take a long time to know whether that absurdly expensive campaign actually paid off, the fact that […]

Social gameplay is often treated like a final boss in game development. It’s the cherry on top that studios promise themselves they’ll add once they’ve made it. And as Adam and Laura jokingly mentioned on the TWIG podcast some time ago, it ends up becoming “social gameplay jazz hands”. A flashy but often empty gesture toward something fundamentally valuable. It perfectly captured how social layers are often treated as the endgame in a title’s lifecycle. You go through all the necessary steps (building, launching, scaling) and if you're lucky enough to end up with a game that gains traction and shows evergreen potential, then and only then are you “supposed” to start thinking about social features. But that mindset limits what social gameplay can actually do for a title. What if, instead of being an afterthought, social mechanics were baked […]

The gaming industry has long embraced the idea that games don't just compete with each other, but they compete with all forms of entertainment. But we may be crossing into an even more complex era. Entertainment is no longer just competition; it’s becoming collaboration. The success of the Minecraft movie, with its impressive box office debut and a viral TikTok trend of its own, is the latest proof that entertainment formats are increasingly blending. Just like how that single standout moment in the movie became more iconic than the movie itself, what we remember most about our favorite shows or films often isn’t the overarching plot. It’s the specific elements that resonated with us. For some, it’s a particular character. And not even always the lead one. Fandoms are often built around supporting roles that strike a chord with audiences; […]

Launching a new Match-3 game in today’s mobile market is like trying to sell umbrellas in the Sahara as we discussed in a recent article. Saturation, soaring CPIs, and razor-thin differentiation margins make even the most technically sound games struggle to scale. When Dream Games soft launched Royal Kingdom two years ago, they entered this same storm, which quickly showed itself. The game was anything but static. It went through long stretches of silence (including a six-month update drought), only to emerge with radical changes, including a full hard reset over a year into its soft launch. But if the product evolution wasn’t enough of a rollercoaster, Dream just took things to a whole new altitude. In what may be the boldest marketing swing the mobile gaming industry has ever seen, Royal Kingdom has gone full celebrity mode. LeBron James, […]

What can you do to improve your game’s performance when another title comes out of nowhere and speeds past it on every chart? You could double down on LiveOps, compete on seasonal content, or push daily events to the max. But guess what? Your competitor can do exactly the same, and probably will. You could also try to optimize your game through different levers such as your level funnel, monetization hooks, or progression systems. They often move the needle, but only marginally. Instead, the smarter move might be to understand how your rival got better at the very thing you were the best at. Analyze what made them click with the audience you once owned. And while doing so, use the opportunity to differentiate your game again by bringing something fresh to the table. This has been Triple Match 3D’s […]

For any team eyeing a sizable market, Match-3 has always been an incredibly tempting target. Puzzle games remain one of the biggest and most consistent genres on mobile, and within that space, Match-3 stands out as a true titan. Generating over 60% of puzzle IAP revenue and pulling in more than $5 billion last year, Match-3 has long held the promise of massive returns. It’s the kind of stat that makes even the most disciplined team think, “If we could just carve out 1% of this market…” That thinking has led so many teams into the grinder… Despite the genre’s enormous size, we haven’t seen a single new Match-3 title cross the $100M lifetime revenue mark in the West since Royal Match, which launched in 2020. Considering the scale of the market, that benchmark isn’t just fair, but it’s actually […]

Casual games succeed by offering straightforward mechanics that are easy to grasp but challenging to master. However, this simplicity can present a challenge for developers. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult to introduce new features that boost engagement and monetization without compromising the game's streamlined experience. Many developers have tried to introduce ambitious, intricate mechanics only to discover that these alienate their audience rather than delight them. In recent years, a new solution has gained momentum across the casual gaming space: collectible albums. Games like Monopoly Go, Royal Match, and Gossip Harbor have embraced these mechanics, creating highly engaging live events that revolve around collecting virtual cards. Players earn, trade, and complete albums in pursuit of rewards, badges, or bragging rights. Collectible albums have become a key tool for developers to add new layers of motivation and replayable content to […]