Candy Crush Saga: Sweetness to Success

This has no relation with e-commerce, but because I've been reading and researching on gamification I decided to see what was all the rage with Candy Crush Saga, the latest casual & social game.

CSS: in short is a Bejeweled clone, but with some minor differences that make the game more interesting. 

Here's what I think made CSS a success today:

1. The game has a limited number of moves imposed, so players must complete the objective within the set number of moves. This makes the game much shorter to play than the Classic Bejeweled, which can either have a time limit or no limit at all. While there's a limited number of moves, it requires the player to think strategically and harder so that each move is more efficient, which is not so evident in Classic Bejeweled where you can just swipe as you please until the game is over.

2. Imposing a limited number of lives mean you can only play a maximum of 5 games each time you login. During the 80s and 90s, arcade games gave you a fixed number of lives to play with so the arcade vendors could milk more money from you and the implementation here forces you to stop playing every 2-3 hours (shorter if you have a lot of friends giving you lives). As a casual game, it was meant to be played for less than 15 minutes and CSS here forces you to quit so you don't play too much. This creates a desire to play it again as soon as possible.

3. And to help you play the game as soon as possible.... here comes the annoying friend request! Nearly every social game requires you to ask for help from a friend, yes it's annoying but when it becomes very frequent on your news feed, curiosity will intervene. 

"What is Candy Crush Saga?" 
"Why is everyone spamming me with all theses requests?"

The list goes on, but these annoying friend request in effect has helped advertise the CSS on every news feed everywhere.

4. The colours in game are very, very striking. CSS's primary appeal is with women. It's no rocket science that women are now the major audience on the Internet. Guys are too hardcore when it comes to hobbies, but women on the other hand are simpler to please. Not that women are simple minded creatures, they are just easier to predict, no, I mean forecast! As CSS targeted the female market and because there are only a handful of games that attract them, the developers hit the jackpot.

So in short, the key success factors for Candy Crush Saga lies in:

1. Limited moves = require strategic thinking and improve play skill.


2. Limited lives = limited play time keeping the game's lifespan and demand longer .
3. It's social = help is required to play the game further but not necessary.
4. Target market = females, as there are not enough femalely games.

Anyone need Lives?