Making money with arcade gem and diamond “match three” puzzlers

I must confess; I can’t stop playing kinds of games like Bejeweled Blitz, Candy Crush or Diamond Dash. I know that for some core gamers, those kinds of games represent almost everything which is wrong in current mobile / social games. They are very casual, playing the games doesn't require much time and focus only short bursts of time and you just can’t lose in those games. Also, what’s more important, they are almost always free-to-play. But I love the! I just love them for so many reasons, the first one being the gameplay experience. I really like that I don’t have to buy very expensive equipment (maybe except iPad) in order to play these games. Second, I love that I don’t have to sit many hours in front of the desk in order to play tem, but everything happens in short bursts. Third, I love how the developers have been able to do so different kinds of experiences with seemingly similar game play mechanics and core loop. And last, I love the amount of polish and perfection which some of these games posses.

In this article, I’m going to dive little bit deeper on how these games actually make money and how they are so good

Core Loop

The high-level core loop of these games is almost identical and extremely simple and quick. First, the player starts to solve puzzles which, in some games take the hard-coded one minute to solve as quickly as possible and in some the user has to reach the goal or be defeated. In most cases, solving puzzles costs specific amount of lives, usually one life for one try. Players can choose to wait that lives reload, ask friends to send lives or then pay real money for getting lives faster. After solving the puzzle, players earn XP, coins (soft currency) and variable amount of points.

When players has reached certain point or progression point, the player levels up which is showed to players’ friends in the social graph of the game. In some games, the game rewards players’ leveling up by visual representation of the progression,  in some game rewards player for extra content.

Key gameplay mechanics 

1. Simplicity

From the quick look, all of these games share same key gameplay mechanic: move items on the screen to match at least three same items next to each other in order to explode them and earn points. And this very simple mechanic is the heart and soul in every one of the game listed in this article. It is simple and quick enough so that the game is easy to open and play for short bursts in the go.

2. Depth (and diversity)

First impressions might be confusing, because in fact most of these games have little more depth than what eye sees from the first five minutes.

First and foremost, Diamond Dash and Bejeweled Blitz both feature one minute quick puzzle solving session which focuses the player to make quick decisions and try different combinations while on the other hand Candy Crush Saga doesn’t limit the time available but limits the amount of moves for session, and focuses the player to think and make smart moves in the session.

Let’s take a look for example to Candy Crush Saga and Bejeweled Blitz. The same core of match three mechanics is in both games, but in addition players are able to match more than three items next to each other, creating special items which have different features. One item might swipe whole vertical or horizontal line through when the player is able to match it with two similar items. In Candy Crush Saga, players are also able to mix different special items together creating super-special items which have very cool abilities. These special items add more tactical depth to very simple gameplay mechanic which compels to players who like to think and discover more special items.

Special and normal green candy item (Candy Crush Saga)

Jelly block and normal block (Candy Crush Saga)

In addition, Candy Crush Saga features different kinds of goals, restrictions and level elements in different levels which further add the depth of the gameplay. Typical restrictions of the game are number of moves which the player is able to make during one session. Goals of different levels can be tied to reaching certain amount of points, getting some number of special items all the way down and also, clearing jelly blocks from the level.

In Diamond Dash the depth comes from how the player is able destroy blocks of items from below so that he can create bigger chunks of similar items, resulting in getting higher amount of points as well as achieving special consumable items which he can use to further. Diamond Dash doesn't have as much depth as CCS, but it has some other specialties by which it is able to keep players engaged. More about that later in the article.

3. Level of polish (feedback on the player)

If Diamond Dash and Bejeweled Blitz are two oldest titles (released on Nov 7, 2011 and Dec 11, 2011 respectively) in App Store and Candy Crush Saga newer (released Oct 19, 2012) it also shows in the level of polish meaning in this case the amount and quality of visual and aural feedback which the player gets from the game.

When played on Retina powered iPads, Bejeweled Blitz has the lowest bar of quality of visual feedback of these games. But that’s not bad either. In Bejeweled Blitz the experience which the player gets from exploding items and using special items got from the four or more matches is great! In my opinions the visual FX and aural feedback which the player gets immediately after doing a successful move is one primary component of keeping players engaged in these games.

Visual feedback  from the use of special item in Bejeweled Blitz.

Diamond Dash is little bit better in the level of polish of visual and aural feedback. Especially immersive is the feedback from the “speed mode” which is achieved by getting certain amount of successful moves in a row within a short period of time (albeit the move is not correct word in this case). 

There is five or six moves which the player has to do successfully within the given time period in order to get to the “speed mode”. In this case, the aural feedback which the player gets from every step is brilliant! Aural feedback is presented by increasing the pitch of the sound FX of successful move, and so by increasing the pitch little higher from every move, causes the player to immediately recognize that now he is one step closer to the mode.

Great example how to send the feedback to the player about special mode in the game. Animated fire frames coupled with  great sound FX creates completely immersive experience for that brief moment of time.

Finally, Candy Crush is the ultimate example on what “polish” means. All the visual and aural feedback which the player gets from the game is tied into the overall experience of slow, relaxed and casual game-play where the focus is to think before act and make wise decisions during the core game-play.

There is no rush anywhere during the game-play and that is communicated to the player with relaxed, warm graphics and soothing – also meditation like music.

Albeit the theme of the game being a little bit naïve, the experience pleases the teenagers as well as little bit more matured audience of the west. 

Graphical quality is superb and the visual fx is super polished meaning that player gets from every successful move rich feedback whether the move cause three items to disappear (match three) or if the player is able to use some special items along the way.

Also, Candy Crush gives very direct and clear feedback of the progression (level) of your gameplay by showing the progression as a path of the young Princess (main character). The game also shows where does the player stand in relation to his friends (social graph) thus resulting in some cases of extra push for the more competitive players.

4. Lives (energy mechanics)

The first three mechanics described above describes how to keep players engaged and achieve better retention by focusing to things which matters most for players (in my opinion). This means that without superb core game experience, additional acquisition, retention or monetization mechanics doesn't bring the added value to the game.

But if these mechanics are integrated to core game experience in clever and unobtrusive way, they really add huge value for the developer (meaning that the mechanics doesn't break the core experience and doesn't scare away the players).

One mechanic which can increase the retention as well as monetization of free-to-play games is restriction mechanics. Restriction mechanics restricts the speed of progression for free-to-play gamers thus allows players to increase the progression either buying or asking it.

In Candy Crush Saga, player can have up to maximum five lives at his disposal. One session of puzzle solving costs one life. Lives regenerate at the speed of one life in a half an hour. If the players want to have lives quicker than by just waiting, they can ask them from a friend. Players can also increase the amount of maximum lives by buying three extra lives with real money.

In Diamond Dash, players have also up to five lives at their disposal and one puzzle solving sessions costs one life. Lives regenerate at the speed of one life in eight minutes meaning that lives are full in 40 minutes.  If player don’t want to wait that time, he can always ask from a friend or buy more lives with hard currency. In Diamond Dash, players can also buy more 15 seconds more time to one 1 minute game session with hard currency 

Bejeweled Blitz doesn't feature any restriction mechanics; it is completely free-to-play in apart from purchasable consumable power-ups.

5. Social elements

Social connectivity and viral invitation mechanics are crucial for any mobile F2P title currently due to rising user acquisition costs and discoverability challenges with App Store and the likes.

In Bejeweled Blitz, social elements are tied into competing against your friends through the top list which is connected to Facebook if the user wants that. In addition, players are able to show off their progression as Facebook status updates. Also, players able to give purchased power-ups as presents to their friends who are also playing the game.

As described above, in Diamond Dash, players are able to send free lives to friends or request those from them. The game also features weekly tournaments between friends (Facebook social graph) from which the winning player gets prizes. 

Candy Crush Saga is the best of the breed among these three games in terms of baking viral user acquisition mechanics in the game. Although not entirely innovative, Candy Crush uses extensively the Facebook social graph in it's core loop. First, there is the "give and ask life from a friend" mechanic which is quite popular in most of the Facebook games. Second, players are compelled to ask their friend's to unlock the next episode of  their Saga in order to proceed to next chapters. Third, the game uses social graph in two ways to increase the retention of the players by allowing them to see their performance against that of  their friends'. The first way is that the player sees his total progression in the game in relation to his friends' progression by seeing how far (in which level) he is from the start of the game. Also, after playing the level, players can see how they have performed in the level compared to their friends' performance - awesome technique to increase the retention for those who are more competitive than the normal joes.

Progression path coupled with Facebook social graph is clever way to use social elements in the game to increase user retention.

In my opinion, Facebook social graph social mechanics (send / receive lives, open quests etc.) are quite effective in engaging users to play more often and that way, increasing retention as well. This is because by default, Facebook automatically notifies when player has received a life from a friend. Also Candy Crush Saga has used ingeniously the social graph to increase user retention among the players who like to compete against 

6. Monetization

When numbers 1-3 concerns on what parts of "match three" types of games increases the player retention of these games, number four describes the free to play energy (restriction) mechanics which creates framework for utilizing the players who would like to advance faster and number five about how to implement viral user acquisition mechanics into the games, then the last element would cover how to make money with the game.

Bejeweled Blitz is perhaps the lightest game of the three in terms of monetization mechanics. The game features in-game currency (called "coins") which the players earn through playing 60 second rounds. The better the player performs, the more coins he gets. Players can also get coins from playing daily spins - lottery mini game. 

Players can use coins to buy normal and special consumable boosts in order to get better scores in the next rounds. Normal boosts costs from 3000 to 7500 and special boosts (called rare gems) which costs up to 75 000.  

If player wants to advance faster he can of course buy the coins with real money. There are several coin packs available, starting from 100k coins /1,79€ , and going up to over 9m coins with the cost of 89,99 euros.

In my opinion, the biggest amount of money comes from players who wants to use Rare Gems. First of all, they are so expensive that some players with deep pockets and short patience can buy those to advance more rapidly. Second , Rare Gems sound and look so stupid that they just have to be tried out. Finally, they are effective enough so that players want to try them again and again.

Cat's Eye -gem. Featuring crazy cat coming in the end of the round. Making crazy cat sounds and exploding stuff up. Not your typical power-up!

Diamond Dash features both soft and hard currency which are called coins and gold respectively. Player gets 10 - 100 coins from one 60 second round and one gold from leveling up.  Players spend coins to lesser one-time boosts before the next round. Gold can be used to buy more effective boosts,  to fill-up  lives (to advance faster) and to buy more time for the round at the end of the round..

Players can also buy in-game currency with real money. Both gold and coin  packs costs from 1,79€ to 89,99€.
My view is that that the biggest money for the developers comes from the players who would like to proceed faster and then buy gold with real money. 

In my opinion, Candy Crush Saga has implemented most effective system for monetizing players, even without using any type of in-game currency system. In Saga, there are several  layers where player can spend some dimes in order to progress faster, affect their result of the level or just add longer term effectiveness of the game.

At the highest level, players are able to buy Charms which are durable IAPs (cannot be worn out) and they  affect the long term variables such as maximum amount of lives. Charms costs from 14,99 euros to 21,99 euros.

View from the Yeti Shop

On the second level there are Boosters which can be bought from the level menu. They are consumable power-ups. Boosters are much cheaper than Charms, and they can be used in tricky situations when player is stuck into some particular level.

Finally there are Boosters which are offered to players on the occasion of failed level. At this point, players can buy five more moves if they got into the situation that they almost passed the level but not quite. Five more moves costs 8,99€.
In my experience, low-priced consumable boosters which are offered to players after the gaming session and which increase the chances of successful session, are most popular IAPs. In Candy Crush Saga, most popular IAPs  are Extra Moves and Extra Lives.

The games in rank

In terms of the six elements described above - the clear winner is Candy Crush Saga. The overall experience from the game is exactly what it should be; the core loop is simple enough so that even the most casual of casuals understands it, but complex enough so that it compels also the players who want to think.  The visuals are real eye candy  and the level of polish really awesome. Game is balanced enough so that the monetization mechanics doesn't break the overall experience but still gives great buck for the developers from the players who want to spend.

Second comes Wooga's Diamond Dash. Best part of the game is the visual and aural feedback which creates very engaging 60 second experience for the players. Core mechanics are very very simple, but still gives enough complexity to engage players for some time. Progression curve in the game is well balanced; players level up quickly during the first five - seven rounds, but then the progressions gets slower and slower. By the time player reaches level 20, it takes a lot of time to reach next level.
The game is clearly developed with casual players in mind, and thus lacks similar kind of depth than CCS.

The grand old Bejeweled Blitz comes third. Mainly for the lack of same kind of visuals and polishing than the Diamond Dash and Candy Crush Saga (at least in the free version), but also for the lack of not being able to get clearer feedback on the level which player has been able to reach. Now player has to tap his profile picture in the rank list in order to get any kind of information what is his level in the game. How awesome would the weekly rank list be when players could see their levels in addition to weekly points? This modification would allow player to  to compete in level-rank in addition to weekly points. 

Small games - big opportunities

In essence, "match three" types of game posses huge opportunities since the amount of work required for make them  is not tremendous (except, maybe, Candy Crush Saga) and the potential revenues are still huge (all of the three games are within top 100 grossing list overall, and Candy Crush in #1).

Before jumping onto the band wagon of match three games, one needs to remember that all of the games (and developers) above  have been very successful in Facebook and in dedicated online gaming sites. Transforming that success to mobile platforms is little bit easier to do than building gaming franchise from ground up.

In addition, the competition in the genre of these games is brutal. There are over 700 hundred games in App Store which have in their description "match three"; Jewel Mania, Jewel Masters, Jewel Stars, Jewel Fever, Cruel Jewels.. you name it.