Match-3 Is Broken, Pixel Flow Clones, and Royal Kingdom’s Rise

Royal Kingdom is now the 4th top-grossing match-3 globally, behind Royal Match, Candy Crush and Gardenscapes. Does it have a real shot at catching Candy Crush?

David Nelson, Ahmetcan Demirel, Laura Taranto and I dig into it in Episode 2 of Puzzle Monthly, which has just dropped.

A few of the threads we pulled:

➡️ Revenue per download is $12 vs Royal Match at $45. A big gap, and not one that's obviously closing.

➡️ How much of the ~28m installs are paid vs organic, and what happens when UA spend comes down?

➡️ Whether Dream would actually in a better portfolio position without it. i.e. is Royal Kingdom eating Royal Match's most engaged players?

➡️ How close the live-op calendars are between the two, and what Royal Kingdom still hasn't pulled from the Royal Match playbook.

We also get into Color Blaze Shooter getting pulled weeks after Scopely's Pixel Flow acquisition, Supercell's second puzzle attempt with Hay Day Match, fresh raises for Vento and Cheer Games, and Farm Heroes Saga crossing $2B lifetime.