Match-3s in the BFG Top 100
Having programmed four match-3s, I’m always interested in how the genre is doing. With the current prevalence of Hidden Object/Adventure games and Time Management games, match-3s seem to have fallen by the wayside a bit. Most of them never reach the BFG top 10, and none have got to no.1 for a long time.
Last night I did a bit of research to find out how many match-3 (or similar matching games) were in the BFG top 100. The answer is not very many as you can see by the chart below (click it to view it full size):
The chart is ordered by date released with the oldest at the top (oops, just noticed that the bottom ones should all say “08” as the year, sorry about that). Some of the newer ones will probably slip out the top 100 soon, especially if they never got into the top 10 in the first place.
There are TONS of match-3s on BFG, but you can see that hardly any are in the top 100. This sounds bad for anyone making a match-3 now but it is encouraging to see that a really good one can make it into the top 10 and remain in the top 100 for a while.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I would be interested to see how well Puzzle Quest on Steam is going. The game got ports on anything I know (Wii, DS, PC from its original XBox Live Arcade start off) so I would guess Match 3 + more behind it definitely is a good thing and the match 3 – strategy – rpg mix + multiplayer battles definitely gave it a fine “base” 😀 (i love it, its currently one of my fav games on NDS, have the XBLA one as well but have too little time at home to enjoy it)
February 25th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Agreed, I think it’s great too:
http://www.binaryjoy.co.uk/games/games-news/flippin-eck-puzzle-quest-is-brilliant/
BUT perhaps the BFG audience didn’t quite get it. It’s got amazing depth.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Perhaps …
To shallow brained to understand something that needs more than 6 clicks to succeed ^^ especially as the game gets hell hard after you get past level 12 or the like … enemies of level 15+ and trying to capture a city is even harder due to the 160+ hps 😉
but still lots of fun.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Yeah I’m already finding it quite hard after only 3 hours of play. By the size of the map it looks like it has many more hours of play.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Caribbean Hideaway was released Jan 08 rather than Jan 07.
This inspired me to do ie. HO genre in top-100 (or click-management).
February 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Well spotted Roman. In fact all the bottom ones should say 08, doh.
Yeah I bet a HO genre in top 100 will be a HUGE list > 50%! Are you posting it on your blog?
February 26th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Yeah, I plan to do so as soon as my daughter gets better and I’ll be working 8h/day again 🙂
February 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Ah the mythical 8th day 😉 Gosh if we could buy time, I’d spend all my spare money on it. Hope your daughter gets well soon.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
So I finally made my analysis. Take a lot at:
http://www.anawiki.com/sellmoregames/2008/04/14/get-in-top-10-or-die/