Tabarak Paracha
Are you a hyper-casual developer transitioning into hybrid casual games, finding it challenging to navigate decisions such as which metrics to prioritize, which ad networks to utilize, and what other best practices to adopt?
We invited Faheem Saiyad, Director of Business at AppSamurai, to our platform to share his expert insights on how to advertise hybrid casual games in 2024.
Join us for an enlightening 20-minute discussion as we delve into the intricacies of this evolving landscape.
So you have a hyper-casual player that just plays for fun, and then you have a midcore game player that is a hardcore fan. When you merge both of them, you have hybrid casual, which is something in between. So you see 40-50% of hybrid casual revenue being generated by in-app purchases (IAP) and still 50% of the revenue comes via ads. The idea was to make a game that is not as complex as midcore so the users that are fans of hyper-casual games can still play it. But at the same time, add layers, social charts, leader boards, in-app purchases. So it should make the user come back to the game again and again and hence the core game or midcore game user would also start playing this game, so you would still acquire a user that would merge between these two genres and at the end of the day you would have higher retention rates and higher LTVs.
[Roman from Tenjin]: What about the proportions of IAP and Ad Revenue? You mentioned it’s about 50-50 for hybrid casual games, but from your experience what should it be like in an ideal world? [Faheem]: So even in the ebook where we evaluated 100 different hybrid casual games, what we saw was that on average 40 to 50% was the ideal scenario for IAP’s. A lot of developers wanted to keep it less than 50% just to go into the hybrid casual set up. So 40% to 50% is ideal, but you also have apps that would do an exact 50-50 split. But the ideal is 40% IAP and 60% in-app advertising (IAA), so the user that won’t do the in-app purchase, can still contribute to the ad revenue by watching a rewarded video, banner ads, etc. [Roman from Tenjin]: That’s a cool insight. Because, I can see a lot of hyper-casual developers starting to do hybrid, and the in-app purchases are the most challenging part. Of course, it’s challenging for any game but we have seen the hyper-casual developers for whom it was so easy to get ad revenue and all of a sudden the ad revenue has shrunk. [Faheem]: Exactly, with all these privacy regulations coming in with the google sandbox, etc. Advertising is becoming more of a challenge these days, and if you use in-app purchases in your monetization strategy, it is more risk-free and you can place a bet on the user purchasing something and becoming a reparative user as they keep coming back to the app it contributes directly to your retention rate, LTV, and overall revenue. [Roman from Tenjin]: Can you share another insight from your ebook just as a teaser? [Faheem]: Sure, so we saw one more interesting thing in terms of the CPI. So overtime as you can see with hyper-casual games and all these privacy regulations that have come to place, the CPM’s and the CPI’s were increasing. This was why hyper-casual developers started to seek other monetization channels. With hybrid casual, although they are willing to pay a premium CPI, as you can imagine, since these are also a combination of midcore games so developers don’t expect a cheaper CPI like a hyper-casual game, but they’re willing to pay a premium price for acquiring a user with the intention that these users, based on the monetization, will be doing in-app purchases. So although as a game developer, your CPI might go higher as compared to hyper-casual, your ROAS would be something that would change when you move to hybrid casual. [Roman from Tenjin]: Okay you said that ROAS would change when moving from hyper to hybrid casual. But ROAS for what day(s)? [Faheem]: So, for hybrid casual games, since they are not as serious as say a casual or a midcore games. You would see that Day 30 ROAS is a very common metric. Of course, over a longer term, Day 60, Day 90, Day 120 are more and more in the mind as well. But you would see a stable rise in your overall ROAS. Day 14 is a good starting point, and Day 30 is the ideal point where you can expect to meet your ROAS goals over 100%. [Roman from Tenjin]: Let’s talk about the specifics. Since 2023, or even the start of 2024, can you highlight some of the hybrid casual titles that are in the market now? [Faheem]: One of the leaders has been Rovio that came up with Angry Birds 2. So you know growing up a lot of people played with Angry Birds, which is a win-win concept. And Rovio was one of the leaders that came up with Angry Birds 2 as a concept for hybrid casual. Because initially in the days that they were not part of hybrid casual, they had more midcore games. They still had things like leader boards and score cards which they moved over to this new Angry Birds 2 ,similar to Clash Royale for example which also enjoyed these features. So these are not too heavy on the user. I could be a user that loves hyper casual games and walk into Angry Birds 2 or Clash Royale. And you start playing a game, and anytime you are stuck on a level you will not be obliged to make an in-app purchase, you can just hop on to watch a rewarded video or watch a rewarded ad. As a hyper casual or a casual player, you can walk into these apps and have a lot of fun. And these apps also have leaderboards and all other developers follow to achieve something similar. So Rollic went into the hybrid casual set up as well. Kwalee moved into hybrid casual publishing as well. TapNation moved into hybrid casual. So you see all of these leading developers moving to hybrid casual.In the remainder of the discussion, we delve into a range of topics including insights from our own report “From hyper to hybrid in 2024,” the leading channels and ad networks for hybrid casual games, highlighting those best suited for game scaling. We also explore emerging trends in hybrid casual gaming, offer predictions for 2024, and share tips for developers in this space. For further insights, we invite you to watch the full video above.
