Hyper-Casual Trend Digest #1

Hey there,

Halloween is over:) As you might remember, the holiday originates from the harvest celebration. So, let’s look at October’s HYPER-harvest before you completely wrap your head around Christmas and the end-of-the-year crunch.

HYPER NEWS🗞

Are mobile games hitting the recession roadblock? According to SensorTower’s report, year-on-year revenue growth indicates a 6% decline. AppMagic reports a 10% downloads decline in the hyper-casual segment in Q3 but stays optimistic about the Y-on-Y trend. Ivan Spijarskiy, Head of Publishing at FreePlay, bets on sustainability and extensive quality evolution of the hyper-casual genre. “Pandemics induced spending on games in 2020 and 2021, while “getting back to normal” resulted in a relatively slight downturn. Even though gaming is viewed as a crisis-proof industry, the overall effect of inflation and consumer spending is also reflected here. Hyper-casual genre stands stronger than most other genres. Traditionally, it is true because of minimal in-app purchases share – no unnecessary spending, but positive emotional experiences drive people into this “form of meditation” as Wall Street Journal called it,” – said Spijarskiy.

In October, the hyper-casual segment experienced a venture capital funding boom – ByteBrew, Arcade2Earn, Homa, TruePlayers, Elyzio, and Amber Studios, to name a few. It marks a solid point of recognition, given the high-risk reputation of the industry and overall pessimistic perspectives for VC funding among other technological areas. Ivan Spijarskiy named three primary reasons behind the trend:

1. It correlates with the general market situation described above. The hyper-casual market is safer than many other industries.
2. Hyper-casual games have a vast (and cost-effective) potential to evolve and experiment, both with game mechanics and genres and business models.
3. Demand for VC funding grows as the hyper-casual market matures. Gaming companies rapidly grow, technological advancement is striking, and new approaches to serving players’ and developers’ communities are emerging.

BTW

Our Russian-speaking community members can find a thorough conversation about the quality-over-quantity paradigm in the hyper-casual market here — Ivan Spijarskiy factors out the hit equation for new studios.

HYPER TRENDS📱

Halloween and Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) are some of the biggest holidays of the fall, so social media is keeping up with thematic content. On Imgur, the Horror board and Halloween board have moved into popular positions, and TikTok has a section with dedicated hashtags, masks and songs.

Ad creatives are a great place to show your spooky spirit. Here is what we did – Twerk Race 3D, Stone Grass, and Ragdoll Ninja.

Let’s look at viral trends on TikTok, YouTube, and Imgur:

• The One Line Drawing effect is addictive, and users have already shot over 4.7M videos with it — the excellent adaptation of simple game mechanics.
• A neat, satisfying paint job. And this is an example of a project you can see — Color Page ASMR.
• A variety of balls with color separation.

Among the satisfying videos in recent months, there have been more and more videos showing production, machines, and factories at work — this kind of content occasionally supersedes art mechanics. Looking forward to see more industrial games 🙂

What about popular games in HC accounts on TikTok?

The theme with various balloons is gaining momentum again: Balloon Guys, Balloon Pop Race, and we see other projects in the category with new projects and viral videos in HC accounts on TikTok.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 🤔

What tools are companies ready to use to create an engaging game? Perhaps, a sophisticated data lab can find a creative solution. How about biometrics? Sunday shared the results of an exciting collaboration. Please, let us know what you think about it. Are you team “Science”, team “Data” or team “Experience”?