When Flappy Bird first entered the gaming market in 2013, it became a trend and soon after that, the trend of hyper-casual games was born in the gaming industry. Thanks to the hyper-casual games, you can see gamers of different generations glued to the same game. In the gaming industry, hyper-casual games play a huge role. A few years ago, mobile gaming was ruled by casual games but with the passage of time and change in the gaming business model, hyper-casual games came into the picture. Hyper-casual games take less time to develop and on top of it, the customer base of the hyper-casual games is huge.
According to reports, the only genre of mobile gaming that saw an increase in the number of downloads was hyper-casual games. Different hyper-casual games were downloaded more than 13 billion times in 2021. The hyper-casual games brought itself a revenue of USD 3.4 billion through ad-monetization. In addition to that, TapTap and other gaming aids also saw a growth that helps the gamers play only the interesting part of the hyper-casual games. Opposite to the core games, the hype casual games run on simple gameplay mechanics. The success of hyper-casual games cannot be denied. It has become an important category for the different stakeholders of the gaming industry. This makes one wonder what exactly are the driving factors of the hyper-casual games that have led to such a huge popularity of this segment.
What Are The Driving Factors Of Hyper-Casual Games?
Firstly, hyper-casual games are simple to develop and simple to play. One can start playing hyper-casual games without a tutorial. It is as simple as downloading the game and playing it. One can even use Auto Clicker to play a hyper-casual game and avoid manual clicking. Therefore, one does not need to be a pro gamer or a tech-savvy gamer to understand the gameplay of hyper-casual games. This attribute makes hyper-casual games a lucrative segment for both the younger and the older generations. In addition to that, the user interface of such games is extremely minimalistic. Most hyper-casual games simply feature one button which is used to play the game. In short, there is no age or skill barrier when it comes to hyper-casual games. These games are designed keeping in mind the mass audience and therefore, it has a large gamer base. Even though hyper-casual games are simple to play, they are highly addictive and therefore, the duration spent playing hyper-casual games is much more compared to other categories of games.
Also, hyper-casual games are easy to develop. It is no secret that hard-core games sometimes take years to develop but that is not the case when it comes to developing a hyper-casual game. Developing and publishing a hyper-casual game is most of the time an easy play for the game developers. The low effort and less time that is required to create hyper-casual games bring a high return on investment for the developers of the hyper-casual games. Also, these games support infinite replay which even though might look boring after a certain period of time has the feature to keep the gamers addicted to it. Even though hyper-casual games may support infinite replay, the toughness of the game increases with each passing level.
The most important driving factor of the hyper-casual game is its addictive nature. Even though the hyper-casual games are simple to play, the infinite replay and the challenges of the game make them highly addictive. This is the reason why the players of hyper-casual games keep on returning to the game to play it. Most gamers engage in hyper-casual games to relieve their stress, pass their time and get a sense of accomplishment after completing a level. Most hyper-casual games provide all three satisfaction to its player and therefore, it is a win-win situation for both the gamer and the developer.
The high return on investment has made the hyper-casual game highly competitive. Therefore, the developers and publishers of hyper-casual games have a requirement to make their games stand out in the crowd. For earning money through hyper-casual games, it is important to implement the right advertising and marketing push. With the steady increase in downloads of hyper-casal games, the trend is here to stay especially for the next few years till it hits its maturity.
