That number is not an exaggeration. A search on my iPhone app store for “match 3” returned 5,045 results…at this point it needs to be its own category of game altogether.
I’m particularly amazed because I think the rigid, “BeCandyedCrush” swap-to-match style gets really dull REALLY fast, and for “matching” games far prefer the kind of game where you try to find the longest chains possible, and create long chains by strategically matching. That is challenging …just locating every instance where a tile is in proximity to similar tiles and can be swapped to form a vertical or horizontal row of three (or 4 or 5, but that’s it), jesus, how is that engaging enough to explain the ridiculous profusion of these games?
I also dislike the chain reaction-ness with match three. I don’t feel involved and it goes by so fast I have absolutely no clue what is going on or how to re-create it, so it’s just noise that doesn’t engage me at all, and that’s not what I play games for.
So if you are a fan of the games and eagerly sample every new “variation” ( in quotes because they seem primarily “varied” in terms of what you swap-match: jewels, candy, fruit, processed meats, who knows? Who cares?) on the theme, can you explain it?
If you don’t like game, why do you play it or care about any variations of it? The App store has copycats etc of every app. (I don’t know anything about this game besides what you described, but I can’t imagine it’s special in any way.)
You don’t watch a chain reaction while it’s happening; you deliberately set it up, and so see it before it happens. Which is where the strategic depth is. OK, yeah, sometimes a chain will go on a little longer than you expect due to fortuitous new tiles dropping in, but that’s just the icing on the cake.
There can be a bit of strategy, and some of the games do mix the rules up a bit. For example Nintendo (!) put out a 3DS Pokemon one where you can swap any two tiles - they don’t have to be adjacent.
But the main reason there are so many is that they’re pretty trivial to make, at least for the basic game mechanics. Years ago when I wanted to teach myself a bit about making games, I made a Tetris clone. If I were to do that now I might make a match-3, and it would probably be pretty quick to get something up and running.
Though the basic gameplay wears thin, there are some really interesting variations which link the match-3 styles game to RPG elements. Puzzle Quest was the first I’m aware, and it was awesome. Puzzle Quest 2, Dungeon Raid, and Marvel Puzzle Quest are all quite fun as well. Other developers have combined the match-3 game with (simple) city-building or civilization-building elements.