Royal Kingdom: Will The Celebs’ Audience Turn Into Paying Users?

Recently, we spotted Royal Kingdom in our Top Trending with 458k daily installs at its peak — that’s 28% higher than after its highly anticipated global launch in November 2024.

See for yourself 👀

What’s driving the surge in installs? Massive video ad campaigns featuring an unmatched lineup of celebrities: LeBron James, Jimmy Fallon, Shakira, Kevin Hart — each generating millions of views 🎥

But here’s the real question: while installs are skyrocketing thanks to these huge fanbases, how many players will actually stick around long term?

And more importantly — can Dream Games turn them into paying users? 🤔

Brainy Prankster: Turning Misleading Creatives into Quirky Puzzles

We’ve all seen those misleading ad creatives with absurd situations and puzzles — always a bit cringy, weirdly catchy, and hard to ignore!

Here comes a Brainy Prankster, a new game that turns this format into actual gameplay. Players solve quirky puzzles like helping a policeman gather evidence or sneaking a secret lover past an angry spouse 😏

We spotted the game in AppMagic’s Top Trending chart this week — and since its late-February launch, it has already hit 19.5M installs. 🚀

The game relies almost entirely on ad monetization with little to no IAP revenue.

A reminder that not all hypercasual noscripts are chasing the IAP-heavy model in 2025! ✍️

👉 To make sure you know what we’re talking about, check out the game’s AppMagic public card.

Top 10 Publishers by Puzzle Games Revenue (2015-2025)

1️⃣ King
The all-time Puzzle king (literally) is King! The publisher never (!) gave up its #1 spot, growing iAP revenue from $126M in Jan 2015 to $13B by Jan 2025, driven by Candy Crush Saga 🚀

2️⃣ Playrix
Next up is Playrix — joined the top club in 2016 with Gardenscapes and stole the #2 spot by 2020. It hasn’t budged since, hitting $12B lifetime iAP by Jan 2025 🏡

3️⃣ GungHo
Also holding a spot in the top 3 since 2015 is GungHo with the legendary Puzzle & Dragons. While the game isn’t as popular as it once was, the publisher’s revenue growth is still notable: from $75M to $4.2B in iAP by Jan 2025 🐉

4️⃣ Line
Line, powered by LINE: Disney Tsum Tsum (which brings in 48% of its puzzle revenue), started at #3 with $59M and grew to $3.7B — now sitting at #4💡

5️⃣ Dream Games
And a fresh face at the top — Dream Games. The studio entered the scene in Aug 2023 and already climbed to #5. All thanks to Royal… well, you know the rest 😉

Learn more about leading publishers.

Merge Fellas: No More Fruits—Merge Memes Instead

Over the past two weeks, we spotted a new Simple Merge-2 puzzle rising fast in the Top Trending — Merge Fellas!

On May 10, the game peaked at 788k daily installs, less than two weeks after almost zero downloads number 🤯

Merge Fellas is a fresh reinterpretation of the Suika Game — the once-viral console noscript where players merged fruits to create the ultimate watermelon 🍉

We’ve seen plenty of mobile versions inspired by Suika (like Fruit Merge), but Merge Fellas stands out by swapping fruit for memes: think cute animals, capybaras, and yes — Italian Brainrot 🦈👟🏖️

While the spike is already cooling off a week later, let’s see if this pop-culture twist on a familiar mechanic can hold its ground against the visuals we’ve gotten used to 😉

Royal Match Hits a New High With $6B User Spending

Last week we discussed the Top 10 Puzzle Publishers and noticed how Dream Games quickly climbed up to the 5th place. All thanks to Royal Match! 👑

The game added one more billion in user spend in just 4 months 🤯

Royal Match overtook Candy Crush Saga in June 2023, becoming the Match-3 revenue leader—and hasn’t given up the top spot since. In April 2025, it continued to dominate, outperforming Candy Crush by 14% in monthly revenue🥇

In the beginning of the year, we highlighted that the game started maturing. It followed the path of previous market leaders like Gardenscapes and Project Makeover, focusing on monetization and LiveOps. That’s reflected in its RpD—up 17.3% YoY, reaching $15.6 in April 2025. Learn more about approaches Dream Games used in our report ✨

And have a closer look at Royal Match's metrics on its AppMagic public page 👀

River Game Arrived at $2B Lifetime User Spending

River Game is best known for its 2019 4X Strategy hit Top War: Battle Game, which accounts for a massive 83% of the publisher’s total revenue 🤯

However, looking at the latest portfolio dynamics, Top War’s monthly revenue is on the decline—making space for a rising star: Top Heroes: Kingdom Saga!

In April, Top Heroes hit $20M in monthly revenue, compared to Top War’s $8M, and it’s still on an upward trend. In just over a year, the game already contributes 16% of River Game’s total revenue 💪

Have a closer look at River Game’s portfolio here 🔎

Screw Puzzle Evolution: How Wool Sort Is Twisting the Genre

We’ve spotted a new twist in Screw Puzzles that seems to be shaping into a fresh subgenre — and had to report it right away 🤩

Right now in Top Trending, there’s a game called Wool Sort — it hit 4M lifetime downloads in less than 2 months!

The twist? Screws swapped for colourful spools of thread 🔄

We then checked Advanced Search — and yep, a wave followed.

Before 2025, only 7 wool-themed games existed. In 2025, 19 new games popped up—14 in April and May alone! 🌊

So we dug deeper to answer:

1️⃣ Why is Screw Puzzle still one of the top genres?

2️⃣ What new elements does Wool Sort bring in?

3️⃣ What are the monetisation differences?

4️⃣ How does its LiveOps compare to Screw Jam?

And finally: are Wool Puzzles the next market breakthrough?

Find all the answers in our latest article

Thread vs Screw: How Wool Sort Stands Out in the Screw Puzzle Subgenre

A new type of the Screw Puzzle hit our Top Trending with 2M installs in May alone. Wool Sort swaps screws for threads—but that’s just the start. Let’s see how it stacks up against its closest reference, Screw Jam 👇

1️⃣ Genre
While Wool Sort beats Screw Jam in daily installs (180k vs 75k in the peak), its IAP revenue is much lower ($2.6k vs $211k in the peak). It clearly follows a Hypercasual model driven by ads.

2️⃣ Core Gameplay
🔩Screw Jam offers short, progressively harder levels and a “limited lives” system to boost retention and drive early purchases.
🧶Wool Sort opens with tougher levels to spark a sense of achievement and maximize rewarded ad views—though this might hurt long-term retention.

3️⃣ Meta Systems
🔩Screw Jam features light city-building: players unlock buildings with in-game earnings after each level.
🧶Wool Sort leans into collection, unlocking artworks and exclusive skins through level streaks and events—appealing to completionists.

4️⃣ LiveOps & Monetizaiton
No spoilers here! Find more details in our new article 😉

👉 Right here

TapNation: How AppMagic Generates 50% M&A Leads

How do top publishers like TapNation streamline M&A, ad analysis, and outreach?

We spoke with Herlinda Garcia and Tuğçe Kurulday to see how their team uses AppMagic in their daily routine.

🔍 M&A Lead Generation
M&A Lead Generation
To speed up the search and improve lead quality, TapNation team uses AppMagic’s Advanced Search. Combined with our detailed and diverse taxonomy, it helps generate 50% of their M&A leads 🚀

📞Find Real Contacts of New Leads
Once the lead list is ready, the Contacts tool helps TapNation’s M&A team reach the right people—no need for extra tools. AppMagic pulls only relevant emails, skipping the usual info@ or inactive addresses 📨

🎨 Trends Discovery and Ad Creatives Analysis
From spotting trends with Keyword Search to exporting dozens of creatives at once — TapNation uses the right tools to stay ahead and refine their ad and production strategy 📈

Curious to see how it works in action?

Read the full story with real workflows and examples 💡

5 New Wool Puzzle Games Released — Just a Week After Our Article

Each week, we scan Top Trending to spot rising hits. That’s how we noticed Wool Sort—a game that jumped from nearly 0 to 180k daily downloads in just a month🚀

The game itself reminds us of Screw Jam, one of the most advanced games on the growing Screw Puzzle market 🧩

However, it falls short on IAP monetization and relies heavily on ad revenue instead💡

That is why, we see two scenarios for Wool puzzle trend to get into the top grossing charts:

1️⃣ Wool Sort will double down on monetization and LiveOps like Screw Jam, pushing beyond download charts.

2️⃣ Big players, like iKame Games, will pick up the formula and scale it further.

Learn more in our new article 📚

Get Ready for Summer 2025: LiveOps Strategies for the Hot Season

With summer just starting, we thought— what better time to share event ideas that can boost revenue during the hot season? 😉

1️⃣ Albums
Albums create long-term engagement by encouraging collection and progress loops. When paired with other events, they helped Project Makeover achieve a 25.18% revenue spike in summer 2024 🚀

2️⃣ Passes
Battle passes help structure player activity and works well for both retention and monetization. In Royal Match, they tied all events together, reinforced daily routines, and encouraged both mid- and long-term goals — contributing to a 31.46% revenue spike during summer 2024 📈

3️⃣ Milestones
Milestones provide quick, low-effort rewards that boost daily playtime and session count.

Curious how they shaped player behavior last summer? 😏
Check out their impact on Project Makeover and Triple Match 3D in our latest article 💡

Top 10 Puzzle Subgenres in 2025

Welcome to our new series where we break down big genres to spotlight rising subgenres and standout games developers should keep an eye on 😉

We’re kicking off with Puzzle — one of the loudest genres lately. So far in 2025, it has generated $4B in IAP revenue, growing 15% year-on-year (YoY) 🚀

Match-3 remains the dominant subgenre, bringing in 58% of Puzzle revenue, up 9% YoY. It’s driven by well-known Royal Match and Candy Crush 👑

Merge follows with 18% of Puzzle revenue, showing impressive 64% YoY growth. The subgenre thrives on Merge-2 noscripts with complex meta layers like Gossip Harbor, Travel Town, and Seaside Escape 🔥

Two smaller subgenres worth watching due to their fast growth are Block Puzzle (12x YoY) and Sort Puzzle (1.2x YoY). Block Puzzle’s rise is largely driven by Block Blast!, while the Sort Puzzle space is more diverse, with noscripts like Goods Puzzle: Sort Challenge and Magic Sort! gaining traction 🔎

Puzzle games are rich in innovation, especially in LiveOps. For example, right now market leaders are actively launching summer events.

🏝️ Learn more detail in our recent article

‘How to’ with Anton Slashcev: Deep Market Research with Market Segments dashboards

📣 We're launching a new 'How to' series to share fresh ways to apply AppMagic tools—based on real cases from our partners and clients!

Anton Slashcev is an experienced gaming producer currently leading the studio Playhero and one of your favourites LinkedIn writers.

🎯 One of his key tasks is deep market analysis to spot potential blue ocean genres.

To do that, he uses:

1️⃣ Market Segment Comparison to find genres with high year-over-year growth

2️⃣ Market Segment to check which genres have:
— High success rate among newcomers
— Low oligopoly index: small share taken by the top 5 projects

This method helps him spot rising mobile game trends ahead of others!

Project Makeover’s New Summer Event Proves its Strategy Works

Project Makeover couldn’t start the summer better than by introducing a new collectible card album with a summer theme — ‘Summer Tale Cards’ 🃏🏝️

⚙️ Mechanics
Each album includes 24 sets of 8 cards with varying rarities. Cards can be earned by completing events, levels, via Cliques, offers, and passes. Completing sets and albums grants rewards like hard currency, unlimited lives, and more.

⏳ Period
Project Makeover launched its first album in summer 2024 and has since completed a full seasonal cycle with four releases. This year, the event returns— proof the mechanic performs well. ‘Summer Tale Cards’ will run for the three month of summer.

✨ Effect
1️⃣ Randomized gacha keeps players engaged, while duplicates slow down content consumption.
2️⃣ Cards tie into other events and level progress, boosting short, mid and long-term motivation simultaneously.
3️⃣ Albums also encourage social interaction — players can trade cards, adding a collaborative element.

Find out how other noscripts use album events and which events perform best in summer in our article 😉

Top 10 Grossing 4X Strategy Games (2015–2025)

The 4X Strategy genre just hit a historic high: $695M in monthly IAP revenue as of May 2025 — a 28% year-over-year growth 🚀

Today, two major leaders — Last War: Survival and Whiteout Survival — dominate the genre, accounting for 38% of total 4X revenue in May alone. They’re not only topping the 4X charts but also rank among the highest-grossing games in general, second only to Tencent’s MOBA Honor of Kings!

These days the genre is evolving rapidly, with bold experiments in gameplay, narrative, UA, and LiveOps. We covered some of these shifts in one of our articles.

However, it wasn’t always like this! For example, if we look back at the top 10 grossing games of 2023, we won’t find a single 4X Strategy noscript there 🫣

The genre has gone through ups and downs — marked by waves of innovation and transformation.

All this you can spot in the video ✨

Or dive deeper via the link!

Brawl Stars Has Just Released a New MOBA Event

⚙️ How it works
On June 5, Brawl Stars introduced a new MOBA-style event called Brawl Arena, with gameplay similar to what we see in Dota 2 or League of Legends:

— Two teams of three players leveling up and fighting each other
— Two lines with towers and thrones to destroy
— Waves of creeps on the lines with neutrals and bosses in the forest

📈 Short-Term Effect
The event launched alongside the new season, bringing a usual revenue spike, though not one of the game’s largest. While it’s too early to isolate Brawl Arena’s specific impact, it’ll be interesting to see whether the mode returns and if it drives further revenue fluctuations!

✨ Long-Term Effect
Staying true to its strategy, Supercell took a complex genre and made it accessible to a broader audience. The result is another innovative mode that’s easy to pick up for both new and veteran players: bringing novelty to the gameplay, boosting retention, and potentially fitting into a larger long-term strategy.

👉 Watch the event footage and explore its gameplay, performance, and role in the overall event grid in our LiveOps & Updates Calendar

Clash Royale Hits Highest Monthly Revenue in 3 Years

In May, Clash Royale spiked to $27.7M in monthly revenue — its highest in three years and a 46% year-over-year increase.

What’s behind the surge? Once again, smart LiveOps from Supercell.

1️⃣ New Offers & Seasonal Promotions
Clash Royale launched several seasonal events — A Tale of Thieves and The Undead March — each built around dual-track battle passes. By connecting events and rewards, Supercell encouraged spending while setting clear short-term goals to boost retention.

2️⃣ Influencer visibility
Streamers like Jynxzi (1.12M subs) and ohnepixel (583K subs) have increased Clash Royale coverage on YouTube, helping to renew the interest to the game and highlight the ongoing promotions.

Did we miss anything? Let us know if there’s more to the story👇

Have a closer look at Clash Royal’s metrics at its AppMagic public page!