Homa Games’ new game, Merge Master, tops the list of global casual game downloads in 2022.
While Take-Two Interactive’s new game, Fill The Fridge, is third on the list. The market for mobile games with simple gameplay and graphics is changing rapidly. Of the 10 extremely simple games loaded in 2021, 6 fell out of the top 10 in 2022.
Rapid changes in the market also create opportunities for fledgling casual mobile game publishers to emerge. Among them, the popular game publisher Supersonic Studios recently completed a merger with ironSource, which topped the list of casual game publishers with positive downloads with nearly 770 million downloads. Two super casual games Bridge Race and Going Balls ranked 2nd and 4th respectively in the download list in 2022.
Creative video ads help casual games attract users. Accordingly, ad placement is very important to attract gaming. By 2022, platforms such as AppLovin, Unity and ironSource are the main advertising platforms for simple mobile games, with the AppLovin platform contributing 37% of total casual game advertising worldwide.
Video ads are the main ad type, accounting for about 60% of all casual mobile game ads and 22% of playable ads mostly placed on the ironSource and AppLovin platforms.
Mobile game video ads often use promotional strategies such as quickly showing the core gameplay of the game, showing failure cases to stimulate users to “break” the game. In addition, promotional videos also use writing calls to action to attract players to participate in the experience.
Although more than half of player consumption is concentrated in moderate game categories, the majority of downloads are still contributed by casual games including hypercasual mobile games. This genre of games accounts for 80% of downloads, while mid-core games only account for 14% of global mobile game downloads.