Is Royal Match Pay to Win? A Deep Dive into King’s Puzzle Phenomenon
The short answer is: not strictly. While Royal Match employs a freemium model, offering in-app purchases, skillful play and patience can get you far without spending a dime. However, the game does introduce increasing difficulty that may tempt players to spend money on boosters, coins, and extra lives to progress. Whether that temptation constitutes a “pay-to-win” scenario depends largely on your definition and tolerance for potential roadblocks.
Unpacking the Freemium Structure of Royal Match
Royal Match, like many successful mobile puzzle games since Candy Crush Saga, utilizes the freemium model. This means the core game is free to download and play. King, the developer, generates revenue through in-app purchases. These purchases mainly consist of:
- Coins: The in-game currency used to buy boosters, extra moves within a level, or refill lives.
- Boosters: Items that help clear obstacles, remove tiles, or generally make levels easier to beat. These range from rockets and TNT to propellers and light balls.
- Lives: Players start with a limited number of lives and lose one each time they fail a level. Lives replenish over time or can be purchased with coins.
The game is cleverly designed to reward consistent play with free coins and boosters, mitigating the need to spend real money, particularly in the early levels. Area Chests, completing Bonus Levels, and achieving victories in normal, hard, and super hard levels are all avenues to acquire freebies.
The Difficulty Curve and the Temptation to Spend
The core of the “pay-to-win” debate hinges on the game’s difficulty curve. Royal Match, much like its predecessors, eases players in with simple and straightforward levels. However, as players advance, the level designs become increasingly complex, introducing new obstacles and challenges. These can include:
- Challenging combinations: Levels that require specific power-up combinations to clear certain areas.
- Limited moves: Restrictions on the number of moves players can make, increasing the pressure to use boosters strategically or purchase additional moves.
- Obstacle-heavy boards: Levels filled with barriers and blockers that necessitate a combination of skill and luck, or the use of boosters.
It’s at this point where the temptation to spend money can become stronger. Faced with repeated failures on a particularly difficult level, players may be tempted to buy boosters or extra moves to overcome the obstacle.
Skill vs. Spending: Finding the Balance
While spending money can undoubtedly make the game easier, it is not a guaranteed path to victory. Strategic thinking and careful planning remain essential for success in Royal Match. Learning effective strategies such as matching tiles at the bottom first and combining power-ups effectively can significantly improve your chances of success without relying solely on paid assistance.
The game also includes features like the Royal League, where players compete against each other for rewards. While participation is free, those who invest in boosters may have a slight advantage. However, skill and dedication can still allow free-to-play players to climb the ranks.
Royal Match Ads
Royal Match’s marketing strategy is another aspect worth considering. The game often uses mini-game style ads, which sometimes deviate from the core gameplay. While Royal Match is not your typical Playrix-type ads that don’t include actual gameplay, but rather a lot of pin pulling.
Conclusion: Is Royal Match Pay to Win?
Ultimately, whether Royal Match is considered “pay to win” is subjective. You can definitely play and enjoy the game without spending money, and many players do. However, the game is structured in a way that incentivizes spending, particularly when facing difficult levels. If you have a strong aversion to feeling pressured to spend money in games, Royal Match might not be the best choice. But if you enjoy puzzle games and are willing to be patient and strategic, you can have a fulfilling experience without breaking the bank. To understand more about how games are designed to engage and educate, explore resources available on the Games Learning Society website or GamesLearningSociety.org.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Royal Match
1. How do I get free coins in Royal Match?
There are several ways to earn free coins:
- Opening the Area Chest: This chest contains rewards, including coins, and is available after completing a series of levels.
- Completing Bonus Levels: Periodically, bonus levels appear, offering extra rewards upon completion.
- Beating normal, hard, and super hard levels: Each level difficulty rewards a different amount of coins.
- Daily Bonus: Login every day to claim a daily bonus that often includes coins.
- Events: Participate in in-game events to earn additional coins and rewards.
2. What are the best power-up combinations in Royal Match?
Combining power-ups is crucial for clearing difficult levels. Here are some of the most effective combinations:
- Rocket + Rocket: Clears the entire row and column where the rockets are located.
- Rocket + TNT: Clears three rows and three columns surrounding the TNT.
- TNT + TNT: Clears a larger area, affecting tiles within a four-tile radius.
- Propeller + Propeller: Creates three Propellers that clear three random game elements.
- Light Ball + Any Booster: The Light Ball will copy whatever boost you choose to combine it with.
3. How do I trigger a Lightning Rush on Royal Match?
You need to be at least level 31 to participate in the Lightning Rush. Tap the “Start” button on the Lightning Rush information screen to enter. During this event, you can earn bonus rewards for completing levels quickly.
4. How do you get rid of Royal Match ads?
Royal Match does not have ads in the game itself, but you may see them on other platforms. You can block them on Android by going to Settings > Wifi > Private DNS and setting the hostname to “dns.adguard.com”. Be aware that using adguard may allow them to track your browsing activity.
5. How many levels are there in Royal Match?
Royal Match has more than 7,000 levels available to play.
6. What is the deal with the Royal League in Royal Match?
During the Royal League, 20 players compete against each other by collecting crowns from beating levels. Harder levels reward more crowns. The rewards are given based on your rank at the end of the event. The Royal League ends when new levels are published.
7. What does the crown mean on Royal Match levels?
Crowns are earned by beating rounds in the Royal League. Multiple crowns can be collected from Hard and Super Hard levels.
8. Is Royal Match rigged?
While some players feel the game is rigged due to the increasing difficulty, it’s more accurate to describe it as strategically designed. The game’s difficulty curve is intended to encourage players to use boosters or make purchases, but skillful play can overcome many challenges.
9. Can I delete Royal Match and start over?
Yes, you can reset the game to Level 1 by contacting customer support via the contact form to delete your game account data. Keep in mind that this process can take up to 7 days, and your data cannot be recovered once deleted.
10. How do you spend coins in Royal Match?
Coins are used for:
- Buying additional moves while playing levels.
- Buying boosters to help you complete difficult levels.
- Refilling lives when you run out.
11. How much are the coins in Royal Match?
Coin prices vary depending on the package size, ranging from approximately $1.99 for a small amount to $99.99 for a larger quantity.
12. What happens after you beat all the Royal Match levels?
After beating all published levels and completing areas, players can join the Royal League to get rewards while competing against players worldwide.
13. Is Royal Match just like Candy Crush?
Royal Match is a basic Match 3 type of game with power-ups for matching large numbers of cubes. The power boosters are similar to those used in Candy Crush and Gardenscapes, with similar properties to clear areas or the entire board in the right combinations.
14. Why are so many celebrities endorsing Royal Match?
Celebrity endorsements are part of a marketing strategy to reach a wider audience. The game’s marketing team has worked with celebrities to create engaging content across social media platforms.
15. How does Royal Match make money?
Royal Match operates on a freemium model without ads but with the option of purchasing in-game items to help pass levels. This model has been a success, generating significant revenue for the company.