Hello, awesome game designers and developers! I was wondering if I could get some feedback.

    *Why are all the popular match-3 puzzle games quad-based? Why don't people like hexa-based match 3 puzzle?

There are many mega hit match-3 puzzle games based on quad board. Candy Crush Saga, Homescapes, Cookie Jam and so on. You can name them foever. 

BUT, there are no hexagonal match 3 games that are actually doing well in the market. There are some hexa 'tab genre' or some 'piece-joining genre' like Blossom Blast. These are technically not 'match-3' puzzles.

Here are few Hexa match-3 games I could find on app stores. None of them are making money in the western market. I dunno if there were more like these :

  - Beak Bang

  - Toy Party: Match 3 Hexa Blast! 

  - Ice Crush - Hex Match 3 Game

  - Momo Pop : Match 3 Hexa Blast! 

  - Line Pop 2  (Probably the only hexa match game making alot of money in Japan)

  - Friends Pop (Made a hit in S.Korea. Again, it's Asian)

Would there be a reason why hexa puzzle is not popular?

Possible reasons:

  1) Hexa game is too difficult.

  2) People are just not familiar with hexa, which means the market is not ready to adopt hexa. It's a matter of time

  3) In hexa, you cannot predict which way puzzle pieces would drop(left or right). So, gameplay is affected by more of 'Luck' factor, not player's skill itself.  This frustrates puzzle gamers.(went too deep?)

  4) There's no decent hexa match game in the market yet. 

  5) Any other reasons??

Can you please give me some insight? What do you think?

I think behaviour on a hex grid is harder to understand at a glance and less predictable.  Given these are generally very casual games, readability and ease of understanding are very important.

Even if you do understand what's going to happen on the hex grid, it's that little bit harder to reason about.