Rise of Hybrid Casual: Is Homa’s IPO on the Horizon?

VICTORY OF HYBRIDCASUAL! Is Homa's IPO coming? Konvoy's latest report has brought incredible news to the Hyper & Hybridcasual game development ecosystem.🥳 🎉 🎊 Homa is a potential IPO candidate! 🎊 🎉 🥳Founded in 2018, its big hit will come in the second half of 2019."Sky Roller" 🛼 brought new mechanics to the fiercely Runner market.The player didn't move a character horizontally across the screen but opened and closed the legs of a roller skater.According to AppMagic, "Sky" reached a peak of 19MM downloads per month in December 2019 (Hyper's Golden Age). 🪙👀It’s one of Homa's biggest hits with around 200MM downloads so far.Next, the French publisher 🇫🇷 released new big hits such as "Merge Master" 🦖 (2021 - 130MM) and "Attack Hole" 🕳️ (2022 - 100MM).And pioneered in the Idle Arcades with “Harvest It!” 🧑‍🌾 and “Craft Island” 🪵🪓.According […]

Carlos Pereira June 3

Journal

Monetization Review: ‘Cup Heroes’ by Voodoo

Welcome back to the game monetization review series. In this edition, we examine "Cup Heroes," which seems like another potential hybrid win by Voodoo. This game has recently climbed to the top charts, and for good reason. "Cup Heroes" impressively blends Idle RPG mechanics, such as enemy waves and character upgrades, with hyper-casual elements like multiplier gates, creating a game that feels both fun and complex at the same time. Here's a snapshot of the game in action: In the following sections, we'll explore the monetization strategies used by "Cup Heroes" and analyze how they contribute to its success. First, let's highlight some of the key rewarded video placements available in the game for ad monetization: Beyond rewarded videos, "Cup Heroes" employs a variety of in-app purchase (IAP) strategies to enhance player engagement and generate revenue. These IAP options provide […]

Michael Kopelovich June 3

Journal

Many screw up live service games

Many screw up live service games by focusing on the wrong things. (I've seen it firsthand)1. Core Game. ↳ It's crucial, but it's not everything.2. Retention Game. ↳ Most games fail here. Do not miss it. 3. Advocate Game. ↳ Your goldmine, but only if basics are right.Stop obsessing about a perfect Core Game. 🔴 It’s a trap. If your players don’t return, polish fails.🟢 What you need to do1. Core Game. Is what your players do over and over again.What you want to hear:↳ "Got it, I know how your game works."2. Retention Game. Is what brings players back repeatedly.What you want to hear:↳ "I'm hooked; I want to keep progressing!"3. Advocate Game. Is where your top fans live.What you want to hear:↳ “I'm hosting a live stream for your game!”Anything else, Sergei? ✋Don’t wait for perfection.Engage top players […]

Sergei Vasiuk June 3

Journal

Out of 124 recent gaming investments, only 19 in Europe?

InvestGame recently released a new report on business activity in the video game industry, and it's quite positive! Make sure to check it out - link here. I am happy to see The Games Fund sits firmly among the most active early-stage gaming funds, leading investments in outstanding gaming startups. Despite all the challenges, we believe that great times, great games, and even more success stories are ahead of us all. I also wanted to address an interesting question that Olle Pridiuksson recently raised.He asked, "Why, out of 124 recent gaming investments, only 19 were in Europe? What is wrong with European gaming companies?"My answer is: nothing is wrong!1. The largest funds are based in the US, and US funds mostly invest in US companies.2. The EU startup legal framework is extremely fragmented and quite complex. We've invested directly in […]

Ilia Eremeev June 3

Journal

Comfort Pack Logic Can Boost Conversion and ARPPU

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗥𝗣𝗣𝗨 Are you still giving the same shopping experience to all players? Use this simple trick - Comfort Pack - to sell to more players without reducing their checks. Illustrated on the example from Monopoly GO.❔𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸?Comfort Pack is the player’s sweet spot - typically their most common or recent highest purchase. Your shop should present offers starting at that price and occasionally nudge for an upsell. Very important: you should avoid displaying lower-priced items unless the Comfort Pack has changed.🛒 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗽𝗼𝗹𝘆 𝗚𝗢:As a non-paying player in Monopoly GO, you enter the game shop and find a carousel of bundles ranging from €1.99 to €22.99. After making your first purchase of €1.99, your lowest bundle shifts to €5.99, aligning with your spending tendencies.⏱ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 […]

Julia Iljuk June 3

Journal

Today’s Landscape: Publishing-Perfect 1

"2023 is shaping up to be a year where big companies and publishers lead the charge, and this trend will likely continue in 2024." Last year, the mobile games market had its first-ever decline as player behaviors changed due to life returning to a resemblance of normality after the pandemic. Other factors within the industry, such as rising costs, a more demanding user acquisition process, and various other industry changes, have made finding success and profits a far higher order. I mentioned in my UA series that launching a game has become significantly more challenging this year, especially on iOS after the IDFA deprecation. If you take a look at the top 100 games in the US, you'll notice a few key trends: “I've had discussions with approximately 70-80 C-level executives from studios of varying sizes and locations, and there […]

John Wright June 3

Journal

Screw Jam success story: How to reach $250k/day revenue?

🔩 Screw Jam 🔩 Hits $250K Daily revenue! 40% or about $2.5/month of that is ad revenue. Let’s take a look at how Quok Games and Rollic did it. 🔥 🔥 🕗 Banner and Interstitial ads have a nasty habit of reducing retention in any game. Screw Jam starts displaying these ad units after level 15, at each level at about 2 min that’s almost 30 min into the game time. Displaying Banner and Inters after such a long time helps explain why D1 retention is 52% and D2 is 41%.🤔 Rewarded videos take almost a back seat in ScrewJam - the only two rewarded ad placements that appear are 1 level for an RV ad when you’re out of life and two spins per day on the lucky wheel. RV make up about 40% of the overall ad revenue as […]

Felix Braberg June 1

Journal

Trending Now: Supermarket Simulator

NEW GAME TRENDING SUPERMARKET SIMULATOR The game market is highly dynamic.Despite the hardware classification, we constantly see big hits on PC 🖥️ and console 🎮 influencing mobile games 📱, and vice versa.In addition to the influence of non-endemic factors, such as those coming from social media.This is the case with the recent trend for supermarket simulators.Developed by Nokta Games and released as early access on February 20, “Supermarket Simulator” jumped into the top games on Steam (Valve corporation) in the first week of March, reaching quickly 10k reviews (today there are 27k)."Supermarket Simulator" is just what the name says.A complete supermarket management simulator, covering everything from ordinary actions such as filling shelves with products to pricing.However, what was just another global short-term trend has become a mega regional trend. 🇧🇷👀There's a reason for that.At the end of March, one of […]

Carlos Pereira May 31

Journal

Release & Transfer Roundup: Second Half of April 2024

TRACKING RELEASES & TRANSFERS# 2 HALF OF APRIL, 2024 Hi Hyper and Hybrid Fanatics! 🤩📲Today I bring you another edition of our long-awaited…💫 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 & 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬 💫I bring you the main launches and transfers from the Hybrid & Hypercasual market in the second fortnight of April.I highlight 4️⃣ titles.✅ “Now Genuine Encounters” by Voodoo“Real Connections, No Gimmicks”This is the first line in the AppStore description of the new app from Hypercasual giant Voodoo. 😲Those who follow my posts know this is at least the third non-gaming app from a big French publisher. 🇫🇷Let me repeat my analysis.This portfolio diversification towards non-gaming apps is probably related to the growing IAP revenue in this market, which has even recently overtaken mobile games. 💰👈For me, Voodoo's strategy is to use its Hypercasual UA machine for non-gaming apps.As well as applying their game […]

Carlos Pereira May 30

Journal

Squad Busters: Supercell is about to miss millions

Supercell launched Brawl Stars globally in December 2018. Now, finally, more than five and a half years later, a new game is coming out - Squad Busters. The news alone has attracted tremendous attention and buzz in the mobile video game industry. And for a good reason. Over the past 11 years, Supercell has generated over 19 billion USD thanks to its loyal p(l)ayer base. The question is: Could they have made more? We believe so, and that’s why we decided to chip in on numerous analyses of the already available Squad Busters games - but from a totally different perspective. Supercell is about to repeat itself as it did several times in the past and is about to miss out on a huge revenue opportunity that ads could present for this game. We do not doubt that the team […]

Božo Janković May 30

Journal

Game Analysis: The Evolution of Idle RPG Systems

“AFK Journey launched with great commercial success this year already passing $30 million on mobile” “AFK Journey pushes the Idle RPG genre into its next evolution by simplifying its core features and clearing a lot of UI management Lilith Games, the creators of AFK Arena, expanded upon the game's universe this year with a new title, AFK Journey. The game launched on March 28th and got off to a flying start, hitting $2 million in its debut week. So, what makes AFK Journey stand out among the crowd? Game design expert Jakub Remiar examines the game's features and systems to explore what was improved upon from AFK Arena and how it pushes Idle RPG to the next level. AFK Journey launched with great commercial success this year, already passing $30 million on mobile. It was the long-awaited successor to AFK Arena from Lilith Games. […]

Jakub Remiar May 28

Journal

Engaging Players with Milestone-Based Live Ops Events

In the world of social casino games, live ops events have become a cornerstone of player engagement and retention. These events, popular in games like Coin Master, Monopoly Go, and Dice Dreams, offer players a series of milestones to achieve, each providing exciting rewards. This article delves into the mechanics and benefits of milestone-based live ops events, highlighting their structure, implementation, and customization. Through detailed examples and insights, we’ll explore how these events keep players coming back for more. Continuous Engagement through Live-Ops Calendars One of the defining features of successful social casino games is the constant presence of live ops events. These games ensure that there is always at least one event live at any given time. By scheduling events to usually last between 24 to 96 hours, developers maintain a steady stream of engagement opportunities for their players. […]

Michael Kopelovich May 28

Journal

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