King released its first new Candy Crush game in over six years on February 6, but it is not a match 3.
Candy Crush Solitaire is instead a game designed to sweep up players in the competitive solitaire space – so can it overtake the genre leader Solitaire Grand Harvest?
We asked two product experts for their views. And, in short, they said King has the spending power to own the solitaire space over time – but Candy Crush Solitaire will have to build out a much bigger suite of live ops to monetise harder if it is to succeed long term.
Since launching globally on February 6, Appmagic estimates suggest Candy Crush Solitaire has generated around 2.5m downloads, bringing the lifetime total (including soft launch) to over 3m installs.
~20% of those downloads have come from the US, with India on 11%, followed by Brazil (7%), France (5%) and the UK and Pakistan (4%). It’s early days on revenue, clearly: Appmagic says King has earned just over $220k in IAPs since launch on February 6, with the US (44% of the spend), Germany (17%) and Canada (17%) leading the way.
Look at category leader Solitaire Grand Harvest’s Appmagic estimates and one can see why King wants to move into the space. The incumbent has to date earned Playtika and developer Supertreat over $1bn since its launch in June 2017, and continues to earn between $15-18m per month from IAPs.
It’s heavily skewed towards US players, with 65% of lifetime revenue coming from that market and 27% of lifetime downloads, which stand at 69.4m.
Design and product consultant – and former King staffer – Tom Froud says King moving into the solitaire category is a “a great idea” as solitaire is “sticky” and the casual game giant has plentiful experience – and cash – with which to make an impact.
“The big deal here is competing for the Solitaire keyword which King absolutely have the means to do. The strategy is to hoover up the Solitaire space which is big and retains well. Grand Harvest is the incumbent, but it’s old now and a bit creaky and unwieldy.”
Froud praises the game’s production values, “juice” and the evolving, varied challenges in the game. He also notes the very low difficulty, wealth of collectibles and relatively early introduction of a weekly challenge leaderboard as plus points. But the game’s orientation may be a flaw.
“It’s landscape which I find odd – it doesn’t need to be,” says Froud. “Totally appreciate the real estate is better but it’s just so alien in a world of excellent casual games in portrait – this might hurt the game.”
He added “cognitive load” inherent in card games compared to match-puzzlers may also limit casual appeal, he adds.
“Candy Crush Solitaire doesn’t reinvent the wheel but with King’s incredible acquisition power I’d expect this to gradually build out it’s live service offerings over time with events, leaderboards and so on and claim the Solitaire crown. The Candy brand will also likely bring more players to card game space as well.”
King’s former product lead for experimentation Tom Storr is now a consultant at The Experimentation Group. He described Candy Crush Solitaire as “an interesting mash-up of elements from King’s portfolio”.
“The core gameplay borrows from Pyramid Solitaire Saga, while the meta will feel familiar to any match 3 player,” he tells us. “As a card game, it comes with a set of rules to learn, but King has done a masterful job with onboarding, guiding players into the game in a fun, low-friction way.”
But like Froud, Storr notes that moving into the solitaire space represents a different type of challenge for King. “The added rules make the game more puzzley than typical mass-market casual hits, which may limit its ability to scale,” he adds.
“To succeed, it will likely need to monetise more aggressively than standard casual puzzle games, yet it has started by sticking closely to that familiar playbook. It’ll be fascinating to see if King can evolve it into something that thrives in such a competitive space.”
