Merged! ohhhh a flying ad...

Studio: Gram Games

Type: Puzzle

Competition: 2048 (Gabriele Cirulli)

Downloads: 100 000 on the Play Store

Price: free

Playing Merged! is like playing digital dominos, putting three or more tiles with the same number side to side will “merge” them and create a tile with a higher number. When merging tiles of 6 you will create a new “M” tile that will explode and destroy the tiles around when merged. The more tiles you merge, the better your score and the more coins you get.

Game Economy

The unique currency of the game are coins, you can obtain them either by merging tiles or by buying them in the in-app store. The only way the coins can be used is by removing one of the tiles you don’t want to play for 250 units.

Apart from buying coins, the store offers you to buy a bonus that will give you two times more coins forever or the possibility to remove the ads for just under 2€, and as we will see a bit later, 2€ is a very small price to pay considering the amount of advertising in the game.

First of all, I would like to highlight the very limited interest for buying coins since, if you need them, you would be better off buying the bonus that doubles the number of coins and you should have your money back in 5 or 6 games. The game also offers a starting bundle for the first two days with a very limited interest for the same reason mentioned before.

Now if you decide to buy some extra coins because you like to change your tiles 10 times before playing, then this game becomes no more complicated than the one that teaches babies how to put the triangular shape in the triangular hole. I don’t think that’s the kind of game that will keep players spending their money on it.

Now to come back to the option to remove commercial ads, as soon as you start playing you will understand why it is offered. Ads are everywhere, you get a banner while playing, an optional video ad to get twice more coins when the game finishes and then another full screen ad when you get back to the main menu. In addition to that, you also get a mandatory video ad when pausing the game and going back to the main menu.

All of those ads will definitely more than annoy you and slow down your gaming.

Why do players pay?

When played without any bonuses, the game is a more difficult version of 2048 and it is quite addictive as long as you agree to pay the 2€ that will get you rid of all the advertising. I don’t think there is much interest in buying any of the other items available in the store as the coins you get while playing normally will be more than enough to give you a small advantage once in a while without ruining the fun.

What to improve?

Creating an app store with only 5 items, 3 of which are bad for retention is not a good strategy. Instead the creators could offer some bonus some call for another M in the next tile or create a small explosion on demand. The other negative point is the amount of advertising that is ruining the game. Either you offer a game that is fully free and then you can put some advertising (not that much) or you choose to publish a game that will have less to no advertising but more additional content in the in-app store. Merged! Is right in the middle and even if the game is fun it will definitely not make its mark for its monetization strategy.

Conclusions

Pros: only 2€ to remove hours of advertising

Cons: advertising everywhere, poor in-app store, badly thought starter bundle

Retention: