What’s happening in the hyper-casual games market (hereafter HC games) at the moment, shared Sergey Martinkevich, Publishing Lead at Azur Games.

Against the background of loud statements that “hypercage is dead“, changes in business strategies by leading hyper-casual publishers and statements by analysts about the crisis in the niche, we talked about the situation with five market experts.

What are the trends of the hyper—casual games market worth paying attention to at the moment, – said Sergey Martinkevich, Publishing Lead at Azur Games.

The developer and publisher of mobile games Azur Games has prepared a study on the situation on the market of hyper-casual games. We share his key theses and graphs.

Dmitry Yaminsky, co-founder of Azur Games, shares in his column the reasons for the emergence of the Pay Per Prototype model and explains why it no longer makes sense in the current conditions.

Unlike most mobile genres, hypercage’s downloads grew in 2021. And at a rapid pace. Neither the “base effect” nor the IDFA story prevented this.

Mobile publisher Homa Games has closed a Series A funding round, receiving $50 million from investors. The publisher will spend the money on developing its technology stack, which helps games track and improve performance. He also plans to promote a new hyper—casual subgenre – arcade idlers.

Downloads of the Belarusian FreePlay studio have reached almost 500 million. Most of it — 290 million — falls on the hyper-casual hit Join Clash. About the history of the studio and its approach to development App2Top.ru I talked to one of the founders and CEO of FreePlay.

Minsk studio FreePlay, specializing in hyper-casual titles, announced a new achievement. The total number of downloads of three games in the company’s portfolio exceeded 400 million. This result was achieved in less than two years.Join Clash

Game development usually begins with the creation of a prototype. However, even before this stage, a fair amount of work needs to be done, says Rotem Eldor, product director at CrazyLabs. In an article for the Gamesindustry website.biz he told what the preparation for the creation of a successful hypercausal title should consist of.

The French publisher Homa Games decided to go beyond the hyper-casual niche. The company has announced plans to engage in mobile puzzles and the genre of board games.

Odnoklassniki launched the direction of hyper-casual games. Developers of such projects will not only be able to launch their games on the social network, but will also receive additional opportunities for monetization.A separate section with hyper-casual games appeared on the Odnoklassniki game showcase.

Analysts from Sensor Tower told which games were downloaded the most in the second quarter (ended June 30). In Europe and the USA, hyper-casual titles are leading — only some games managed to overtake them in terms of downloads. But in Asian stores, the situation is slightly different from global trends.Hair Challenge

January-March was very successful for the hyper-casual genre. Its quarterly downloads increased by 76% compared to October-December 2020. The number of sessions also increased by 36%.

App Annie has prepared a small report on the state of the hyper casual games market following the results of the first quarter. The fastest growing category was simulators, the number of downloads of which increased by almost 200% in annual terms.Key data for the first quarter

Popular video blogger Vlad Paper opens the game publishing house RedTower. His company is ready to provide any project with guaranteed organic matter of 2 million units. How it works — in conversation with App2Top.ru Ruslan Voronetsky, Business Development Director of A4 Group of companies, who manages the blogger’s non-YouTube businesses, as well as Nikolay Voronkovich, CEO of RedTower publishing house, told.

In February, Gismart released two of its games at once. One of them — the Pencil Rush 3D hyper—casual arcade – turned out to be a hit. Its monthly downloads amounted to more than 8.3 million. With App2Top.ru the British-Belarusian developer shared what metrics the game had at the start.

At the end of last year, a new publisher of hyper—casual games appeared – Hoopsly. It was founded by Sergey Drozhzhin, CEO 3D.RU , and Nikita Guk, previously responsible for the development of the Playgendary and Pixonic brands. The company has already managed to get a “residence permit” in Dubai and attract $ 5 million. We talked with Nikita about the history of Hoopsly and the features of the hyper-casual market.

Indie artist and developer George Zarkua wrote a big thread on his Twitter page about the structure of the hyper-casual games market. He spoke about the history and development of the genre, relations with publishers, filling the market with money and the trend towards wholesale borrowing of other people’s ideas. We share material based on motives.