This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on November 2nd, 2022. This piece was translated from Swedish by Claude. Some phrasing may differ from a human translation.

For years, Swedish gaming company King has dominated the charts with Candy Crush Saga. A young Turkish studio is now looking increasingly like a genuine challenger.

The mobile gaming market is made up of countless micro-genres where developers compete to be the best. In what is called “match 3” — where you swipe to line up three identical items — Candy Crush Saga has long been dominant.

The genre is deceptively simple at first glance. There are hundreds of games that look almost identical. The difference lies in the details that give players the urge to keep going. For many, Candy Crush just feels better. But creating that feeling is an entire science in itself, behind the scenes.

That is what makes it so remarkable when a brand-new match 3 game appears and becomes enormously popular. Turkish studio Dream Games was founded as a spin-off from Peak, which was acquired by the American company Zynga. In just three years, they have created one of the world’s most successful mobile games — Royal Match. In a genre that every major studio has tried to crack, it is a small upstart that has done it better than most.

The key may lie in unusually sharp focus. The entire company — around 100 people — works on a single game. The result is a highly polished and elegant experience where something new happens every day. The numbers speak clearly to the success of that strategy: estimated revenue over the past twelve months is 4.7 billion kronor.