• Source: Royal Match

Royal Match is a casual free-to-play tile-matching video game launched in 2021. It was developed and published by the Turkish company Dream Games, founded in 2019, and in it, players follow a king in restoring his castle. The game runs on the Unity game engine and is available for iOS through the App Store and Android via Google Play, the Amazon Appstore, and the Galaxy Store. As of December 2023, Royal Match is the largest mobile game by monthly revenue globally with annual consumer spending at $2 billion. There are about 55 million monthly active users.




Gameplay



The game follows King Robert as he fixes his castle. It is a match-3 tile game, meaning that the player must usually complete levels by matching three (or more) of the same type of object in a line, similar to other games such as Homescapes, Candy Crush Saga, and the Bejeweled series. Other items that the player has to clear may be placed, such as Vases and Eggs. Players must complete a level in a certain number of moves. If they fail, they lose one of their five lives, which are regenerated over time. Players that are having difficulty can use Boosters to help them. The two types are Pre-Game Boosters, which are randomly placed before the start of the level (these include Rockets, TNT, and Light Balls), and In-Game Boosters, which are placed during the level (these include the Royal Hammer, Arrows, Cannons, and the Jester's Hat). There are over 8,000 levels as of March 2024, with new ones being added every two weeks.
While there is a level-based campaign, the Royal Match also offers Tournament, Challenge, and Quest modes, which are not required to progress. The game has an alliance system, Teams, in which level progression is determined as a team, and members must collaborate to obtain rewards. The game can also be played offline.




Development and release


Royal Match was first made available only in Canada, Turkey, and the U.K. in a limited test for iOS and Android in July 2020. During the test, it received 1 million downloads and 200,000 daily average players. Royal Match was soft-launched on February or March 2021. In mid-2021, it reached the top 20 highest-grossing mobile games in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, reaching over 6 million users. By August 2021, it had 16 million downloads, making it the most popular in the U.S. at 28%. The U.K. and Germany followed at 7.7 and 7%, respectively. Despite its free-to-play approach, it gained $102 million in revenue from its first six months of operation. The U.S. accounted for $67 million of the total.
Dream Games, the developer and publisher, received $57.5 million in funding for the game in March 2021, making it the largest Series A for a Turkish startup company ever. Funding was led by Index Ventures, with Balderton Capital and Makers Fund also contributing. Then, a Series B round in June 2021 and a Series C round in January 2022 raised $155 million and $255 million, respectively. It aired its first TV commercial in January 2023, created by British advertising agency House 337. Royal Match additionally collaborated with Simon Cowell to release ads featuring him. Other celebrities that have done ads for the app include Amanda Holden, Rylan Clark, Olly Murs, Stacey Solomon, Dermot O'Leary and Tess Daly. Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and former President of Walt Disney Animation Studios, became a part of Dream Games by December 2023, working as a strategic advisor.




Reception


Laura Taranto of the blog Deconstructor of Fun compared Royal Match to Toon Blast and Homescapes, saying that the game has "the speed, fluidity, and palette of Toon Blast ... with the level diversity, power-ups and tap-to-activate from Homescapes". She states that power-ups are more effective than those in games developed by Playrix and King.
Erin Brereton of Common Sense Media gave the game 3/5 stars when reviewing the game's suitability for children, saying that the puzzles are entertaining but in-app purchases are prevalent. The blog Old Cynic rated the game 4/5 stars for its challenge and causality, even though it is "missing that long-term strategic element that helps to keep you locked in." Review aggregator Explore Opinions remarked that the game had appealing gameplay, enticing visuals, and plentiful levels, although it had difficulty spikes, limited customization options, and some paywalls.




Advertising


Online advertisements promoting Royal Match have faced criticism for being misleading, as they depict a player trying (and failing) to clear tiles to save the king from a dire situation. The game itself is about clearing levels to decorate the castle, though there are occasional "King's Nightmare" levels which put the king in jeopardy unless a certain number of tiles are cleared.




References

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