Today, we look at how Royal Match is emulating Candy Crush in a sort of sketchy fashion.
Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of pop culture history that interests me that doesn’t quite fit into the other features.
Last year, I wrote about how enough people were abandoning Candy Crush Saga for Royal Match that King, the owners of Candy Crush Saga, responded to the challenge by improving the problems with Candy Crush Saga that led to people abandoning the game (like having multiple levels that you canNOT pass without boosters or gold bars)…oh, wait, no, they just started to spend a lot more money on ads (when word of mouth carried the game for YEARS).
At the time, I noted that I had started playing Royal Match, and that it was a much better experience than Candy Crush Saga, and now, a year later, it STILL is, but it’s doing this one thing that really irritates the heck out of me because it is so underhanded, and so clearly inspires by the worst aspects of Candy Crush Saga.
You see, in Candy Crush Saga, they’ll put multiple “Super hard” levels in a row, in the hopes that you will be “forced” to use boosters or gold bars (and then maybe will be willing to buy more gold bars or boosters), but they’d also occasionally do levels that are nominally “normal” levels, but are actually “super hard” levels in disguise, as, well, who the heck decides what level is considered “Super hard”? It’s all their game, they can say whatever they want.
Well, similarly, I’ve noticed that Royal Match is now putting “super hard” levels disguised as “normal” levels, and they’re always RIGHT before an ACTUAL “super hard” level. It never fails, I’ll hit a “normal” level and I’ll have a surprisingly difficult time with it, and I’ll finally pass it, and EVERY time, the next level is an actual “super hard” level.
The intent is clear, just like with Candy Crush Saga, they want you to use up your boosters and gold right before you hit another super hard level, so that you’ll hopefully be desperate enough to spend money to buy boosters and gold.
I still prefer Royal Match to Candy Crush Sage in a BIG way (it’s MUCH better), and I actually haven’t spent any money on the game yet, which is cool, but it still makes me give them the side eye on these fairly sleazy tactics.
Great Article. You have beautifully articulated it. Readers revisit only if they find something useful.