5 reasons to create hyper-casual games

With games reaching a wider audience and broader appeal, the gameplay and user experience has changed. Over the past few years, the explosive growth of hyper-casual games demonstrates this trend to the fullest, providing a low-powder entry point for both players and developers.

Making a game is an expensive process. Hiring a solid development team and increasing production costs is a real challenge for all studios. If you add marketing and consistent user acquisition, prices continue to rise as they search for players is just beginning. However, hyper-casual gamers have turned these stereotypes upside down, opening up new possibilities for developers without the need for a significant initial investment.

To better understand how hyper-casual gamers are helping developers enter the professional gaming world, take a look at five reasons game developers should start making games.

Ease of development and production

Hyper-casual games are an easy option for any developer looking to create games. Small teams can produce large numbers of prototypes each month, testing mechanics and aesthetics to see how players react early in production.

Hyper-casual developers focus on minimalism, reducing the development cycle to just a few days. Rather than spending years on a massive project with no guarantees of success, hyper-casual games give developers the space to quickly iterate and assess market potential early on.

Hyper-casual games should have straightforward mechanics for beginners without relying on added complexity for longer sessions.

Typically, hyper-casual developers avoid complex gameplay by limiting everything to two mechanics. The game should be easy from the start, make it more accessible to more people, and make programming easier.

Profitability and budget sensitivity

Money can sometimes be an issue when work is just starting on a new game, but this obstacle is removed with hyper-casual games.

In hyper-casual games, traditional advertisements and expensive TV and radio spots are usually avoided. Social media and platforms like Google and Facebook are not only more accessible but also provide more data and accurate targeting to potential audiences.

Modern online advertising allows you to achieve better results thanks to more advanced metrics. In practice, this translates into better marketing and more effective user acquisition, which can be monitored continuously with various tools, updating campaigns and strategies in real-time.

Play for free and enjoy

Hyper-casual games are always free to download and play, removing the cost barrier for new players. All they have to do is open their app store and download them.

Undoubtedly, creating a free product leads to a huge audience, but it can raise concerns about how it will lead to a successful business. Most of the revenue comes from advertising for hyper-casual games, leveraging a large audience while keeping the game free.

‍Installation cost (CPI) for a standard game usually ranges from 10 to 30 cents. The user lifetime value (LTV) is then calculated based on how much money he is expected to make for the game, around 20-50 cents.

Mass market appeal

Every hyper-casual game is designed for people aged 6 to 66. Small children, adolescents, the elderly: everyone with a smartphone is a potential player.

Whether waiting for the bus or wanting to relax after a tense meeting, hyper-casual games give people the opportunity to have fun when they need it most.

The emphasis on minimalist design contributes to this mass appeal. Hyper-casual games seek to make the adaptation process invisible, opening up gameplay to players they immediately understand without a tutorial. Once in the game, everything leads to the achievement of goals and clear conditions for victory.