No, Match-3 is Dead
It's hard to know what to make of Royal Kingdom since its November launch. As with MiHoYo, the question is always cannibalization for like games in a portfolio. This is, of course, tied to the counterfactual: would a similar return have been achieved by investing an equivalent amount in the flagship product (Genshin, Royal Match)? So far, it looks like it may be displacing Royal Match, which has now hit a near all-time low in downloads since its 2023 explosion.
This IS the optimal strategy in a portfolio (or any ad market): pair the highest-relevant LTV game to the ad viewer. Remember, "those who win the auction, win the market."
The question has always been what happens on the UA side, and match games regularly hit D365-720+ payback windows. The "eligible" player pool has been tapped out, and thus, we see lower revenue per install in Royal Kingdom than in Royal Match: they are acquiring marginal users.
The stacked revenue chart is key: Match displaced by Kingdom, but total portfolio revenue hardly tells the story that looking at each game does. A prima facie read says that Dream spends $200m in launch budget to maybe add $5m in incremental portfolio revenue. If that's the best a titan can perform, with every Xscapes rots in soft launch, and Match Villains + Truck Star "husking" poor KPIs, then Match 3 really is dead.
