Why Royal Kingdom Isn't Paying Off (Yet)

Why Royal Kingdom (RK) isn't paying off (yet)

The primary differentiator (combat levels) don't resonate strongly w mass-market, as evidenced by mode's omission in top ad creatives.
Lacks economy differentiators that meaningfully lift spend depth or efficiency.
While core M3 gameplay is fantastic (love the column obstacle), retention performance very likely lags Royal Match.
Unless CPI for RK (despite similar creatives) is somehow >= ~25+% better than RM, ROAS for incremental UA spend should still side with RM.
Re: cross promotion from RM -> RK, it's not clear whether this increases (vs. decreases) player LTV in the ecosystem.

Yes, Gardenscapes and Homescapes coexisted for a long time. But, we lack the counterfactual case where all resources were instead poured into one game. Would that have been better?

At the end of the day,

Increasing surface area / market share is a good thing.
As long as RK isn't depriving RM of resources, then experimentation is good and safe.
RK could serve as a safe(r) platform for experimentation, to feed RM.
Product-market fit is never 100% predictable, BUT I would've thought combat levels differentiator could be invalidated via ad-testing prior to launch.

What do you think?

Should Dream have been able to discover earlier that RK's differentiator wasn't a mass-market fit?
Will Royal Kingdom be a net-positive for Dream?