In the April new game revenue chart, SuperPlay's new product "Disney Solitaire," developed for Playtika, achieved over 30 million yuan in monthly revenue just 14 days after its launch, strongly entering the top ranks of card mobile games. What's more intriguing is that card games, a seemingly traditional genre, are becoming a hot new track in overseas markets. King announced the launch of "Candy Crush Solitaire," and other casual game giants like Wooga and Metacore are also testing new card games, seemingly heralding the start of a new trend. What makes "Disney Solitaire" so explosively popular? How is the card game category undergoing transformation and competition? The foreign media Naavik deeply analyzed the success behind this game and the evolving trends of the category, and Gamelook has organized the content as follows.
SuperPlay was founded in 2019 by former core members of Playtika, focusing on creating evergreen leaders in the charts. Following the great success of "Dice Dreams" and "Domino Dreams," the company garnered 27 million downloads and $300 million in revenue over three years, and was acquired by Playtika in 2023 for $700 million, with a potential valuation of up to $1.95 billion. "Disney Solitaire" is one of the key projects pushed forward after the acquisition, launching in mid-April and quickly becoming the second highest-grossing card game in less than two weeks, with an exceptionally warm market response.
This game follows "Solitaire Grand Harvest" and adopts the classic TriPeaks gameplay, but integrates a "multiplier + gold economy" model at its core. Each level requires gold to enter, and players can choose to bet at higher multipliers to gain greater output, but also bear higher risks of failure. This mechanism, inspired by the "high risk, high reward" logic of card games, replaces the traditional life system and single-level income, enabling a qualitative leap in the business model of card games. Data shows that "Solitaire Grand Harvest" has an RPD (Revenue Per User) of $31 in the US, surpassing most mainstream casual games, and "Disney Solitaire" reached $1.25 at the beginning of its launch, far exceeding the newly launched "Candy Crush Solitaire" at $0.56.
The rise of this "card game economy" not only makes card games more profitable but also shapes deeper payment strategies and retention paths. "Disney Solitaire" refines the level design, visual expression, and user behavior paths of "Grand Harvest," supplemented by the emotional appeal of the Disney IP, making it both attractive and commercially efficient. In contrast, King's "Candy Crush Solitaire," although launched with a top IP, focused more on innovative gameplay, adding mechanisms like "holding slots," which actually weakened its appeal to a broad range of players, leading to poorer monetization and RPD performance.
In fact, in recent years, several card mobile games have attempted to challenge the dominance of "Grand Harvest," but most have not shaken its position. "Disney Solitaire" stands out not only by continuing a proven successful card game economic framework but also benefiting from SuperPlay's long-term accumulation in similar structured games, like "Domino Dreams," which also adopts a similar mechanism. In contrast, products like "Fishdom Solitaire" and "Solitaire Home Design," although also incorporating a multiplier system, failed to create an effective positive cycle due to unbalanced difficulty design and insufficient rhythm control.
It's worth noting that this wave of "card game transformation" may just be the beginning. Besides top manufacturers like King, Wooga, and Playrix, more startups are also targeting the integrated approach of "multiplier + social + meta-game." For example, the Turkish team Cypher Games received tens of millions of dollars in investment last year and is testing "Match Squad," which integrates level challenges with a social card game economy; another manufacturer is preparing to combine the PvP mechanics of "Royal Match" + "Coin Master" with a betting economy, aiming to create a new generation of monetization tools.
Card games, as a core light-strategy category, are becoming a hotbed for innovation in casual game business models due to their moderate gameplay thresholds, high monetization efficiency, and broad IP adaptability. The success of "Disney Solitaire" is not just a story of IP empowerment but a milestone event in the large-scale replication, iteration, and optimization of the "card game economy" in casual mobile games. In the future, the "multiplier + betting" model is very likely to become the new mainstream economic model in the entire light mobile game field, benefiting far beyond just the card game category.
Whether "Disney Solitaire" ultimately surpasses "Grand Harvest" or not, its explosive start is a reminder to the industry that there is still huge potential for evolution in the business models of light games, and the "multiplier model" may lead the next wave of global casual mobile games going overseas.
