Editor’s note: This article was originally crafted by TapNation. If you fancy reading the original, you can find it here. 

It’s no secret that creating a game can be pricey. Hiring a strong development team is just the start of your journey. Aside from the months (even years) of developing a game, when you start focusing on your marketing and ongoing user acquisition campaigns, the expenses and costs can pile on (before you’ve had a chance to make any revenue). Making it near impossible for smaller dev teams to enter the market.

Hyper-casual is changing that. These games are turning into a developer’s stepping stone into kick-starting their career in the gaming industry.  Without the need for large initial investments.

And to get a better idea of how the hyper-casual genre can help game makers enter the professional world of gaming, we’ve rounded up our top 5 reasons in this blog.

Let’s get started.

1) It’s easier to develop and produce hyper-casual games

Due to how simple hyper-casual games are, they’re a much easier option for any dev looking to make a game for the first time. Incredibly small teams can produce a large number of prototypes every month; testing mechanics and aesthetics to see how players react as a part of the initial phases of production.

This genre focuses on minimalism, shrinking development cycles down to a matter of days. Rather than spending years on a huge project with no guarantee of success, hyper-casual games give developers the space to quickly iterate and gauge the market potential of a game early on.

Keep in mind, that hyper-casual games need to have clear and simple mechanics

Hyper-casual developers should avoid making the gameplay too complicated as a general rule of thumb. You’ll want to limit everything to two mechanics at most. Your game has to be simple from the onset, making it more accessible to more people and also easier to program.

Here are a few examples of some of the core mechanics hyper-casual developers often choose from when creating a new game:

• Rise & Fall
• Tap/timing
• Dexterity
• Merging
• Pushing
• Puzzle

Take Teeth Runner! as an example. This is a great example of the tap/timing mechanic. SImple to start, and slowly gets more challenging.

2) They’re cost-effective and budget-sensitive

Hyper-casual games focus on simple mechanics and quick development cycles, tending towards smaller budgets and more cost-effective results than other genres. Money can sometimes be an issue when work first begins on a new game, but with hyper-casuals that hurdle is removed.

You don’t need a huge team

Which reduces the costs greatly. Hyper-casual games also tend to avoid traditional advertising and expensive TV and radio spots. Social media and platforms like Google and Facebook are not only more affordable, they also provide more data and precise targeting for a larger potential audience.

It’s getting easier to advertise online

Hyper-casual relies heavily on ad revenue. And it’s getting easier and easier to set this up and optimize your campaigns. Granted, the new updates from Apple on iOS 14.5 have thrown a spanner into the mix. But there are tools and partners out there that specialize in this, which can give you a helping hand.

As an added bonus, the creatives found across the internet and on social media are also significantly easier to produce, translating into more optimized spending as marketing campaigns evolve.

3) Free-to-play means you’re more like to get more players

Hyper-casual games are typically always free to download and play. Meaning there’s no price barrier for new players. They need to open up their app store and download them.

More players = more data

Making your game free means more players want to try your title out. Which leads to a bunch of benefits. Experience, for starters. But also data. You want to get as much player data as possible when you’re first starting out. That’ll teach you about your players’ behavior: what they like, what they don’t like, when they leave a game, what ads they are likely to click on, and more.

So having your game free and getting more players playing your game gives you just that.

That doesn’t mean you won’t make revenue

For hyper-casual games, the majority of your profits come from ads. Including:

• In-App Advertising – Ads inside the game itself.
• Premium Payment Model – Purchasable options to remove ads from the game for a fee.
• Cross-Promotion – Ads for the game displayed in other games.

The Cost Per Install (CPI) for a standard game usually shifts between 10 to 30 cents. The user’s Lifetime Value (LTV) is then calculated based on how much money they are expected to generate for the game, leveling out to around 20-50 cents.

For an individual user that can look like a small amount, but when the scale is millions of downloads and millions of users everything quickly adds up to large profits.

4) There’s a mass-market appeal

Every hyper-casual game can target people from 6 to 66 years old. Young children, teenagers, senior citizens: anyone who owns a smartphone is a potential player.

The simple gameplay also makes the games snackable and easy to digest. From waiting for the bus or looking to relax after a stressful meeting, hyper-casuals fill in the short gaps of time when people have nothing else to do.

That mass appeal is aided by a strong focus on minimalist design. Hyper-casuals aim to make onboarding as simple as possible, opening up players to gameplay they immediately understand without a tutorial. Once inside the game, everything leads towards satisfying goals and clear win conditions.

5) You can get millions of downloads

Being free is never a burden for business in the world of hyper-casuals. As an example, TapNation has gained over 340 million downloads since 2019, highlighting the market’s growth potential.

Giant Rush! came close to achieving 100 million downloads in just a couple of months

Hyper-casual games are constantly sitting at the top of the app stores, even in front of major apps like Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat. This visibility offered by the millions of downloads and players is also attractive for potential new partners interested in sharing the screen, making it easier to bring them in and broaden your business.

At TapNation, we design hyper-casual games that provide entertainment for players worldwide every day. We look forward to helping new devs and are always interested in receiving submissions for new concepts. We’re already excited about your new game and want to help make sure more people are playing it as soon as it launches.

If you want to learn more, feel free to get in touch with us here.

And if you fancy some more reading, check out how TapNation uses GameAnalytics to increase LTV and release hit after hit.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by TapNation. Make sure to check out their version here.

The question of how people find your content is a tale as old as the internet. Having the best story or the most innovative gameplay means very little if no one can find it, never mind play it.

Which is why ASO (App Store Optimization) is so important. It plays a crucial role when publishing your game. And it isn’t as time-consuming or complicated as you may think.

At TapNation, we help make sure new players find your hyper-casual games by using the best ASO techniques and most effective marketing strategies. If you have great intuitive gameplay, we want to make sure everyone in the world is playing it.

But if you’re just looking for some simple advice to get you started, well here a few tips that we recommend:

1. Icons Make First Impressions

The vast majority of potential players will judge everything about a game on its icon. It’s impossible to understate how important it is to have something that not only catches people’s attention but also intrigues them enough to download your game.

The first impression for most games comes from their icons

Never judge a book by its cover. As nice as that is, unfortunately, this isn’t the case for the app stores. There are hundreds of thousands of games on the app stores, and your little icon will be one of the first things a potential player sees. So you’re going to want to make it stand out.

Quick tip: Run A/B tests

When working on your icon, research what similar games in your space are using. Focus on your best competitors. And then experiment with your own. You don’t want an exact copy, but you should be able to pick out some good trends. Make sure to A/B test to find out which ones work best with your own audience.

Why should potential players be drawn to your game?

Having an icon that stands out within the crowd of games is a large part of the difference between success and failure.

But making it eye-catching is only half of the job. It shouldn’t lose what the essence of the game is about. It needs to represent the game accurately in a tiny square next to other similar squares. The ideal situation is finding a way to stand out with an image that intuitively speaks about how the game is played and what makes it unique.

Quick tip: See how your icon sits against your competitors

You can put together a test group if you want, but it may not be needed for this. To get a better idea of how well your icon is perceived, a common trick is to take a screenshot of the top apps and slot your icon within the mix. If it doesn’t immediately catch your eye (or your friend’s or family member’s), it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

2. Perfect Your Names, Screenshots, and Trailers

You’ve tackled the icon. What next? Your name, screenshots, and trailers.

These are all secondary to the icon. But they are equally just important, and crucial to turning someone’s interest into an actual download, and eventually loyal player.

All three need to stand out in the context of the app stores. Everything needs to revolve around capturing the core gameplay and what makes it exciting (without seeming generic or uninspired). Capturing the essence of a game in just a few images and words to entice interested users is what it’s all about.

Quick tip: find the best screenshots of the most exciting part of the game while avoiding text and UI

Everything needs to accentuate the unique look and feel of the game.  You want to help people instantly understand how your game is played, and what makes it stand out from the competition.

You want to educate, excite, and convince – all on one page. Which is one of the most challenging parts of publishing your game. So make sure you’re showing and talking about the best parts of your game at this stage.

Quick tip: Research keywords when figuring out your name

You might already have an idea of what your game will be called. But whatever stage you’re in, we’d recommend performing some keyword research for your title. Usually, you’ll want something short, descriptive, and unique.

3. Limited Text and Trailers

You don’t need to go overboard when it comes to your text and video trailers. Most people decide whether to download a hyper-casual game based on its icon and screenshots first and foremost, but that doesn’t mean text and trailers are useless.

Using text and trailers to highlight key features and make basic calls to action are okay, but it’s easy to get carried away and just lose players in a wall of text or a long-winded tutorial.

The best use of text and trailers comes from making clear statements about the gameplay that people think are hard to find in other games. Especially with hyper-casual games (which should be simple and intuitive anyway).

Quick tip: don’t forget to localize your text and images

One last side note for any text featured in the app stores is to remember that everything needs to be localized if your game is launched in multiple markets.

Standing Out In Context

Remember: your game will instantly be judged based on its icon. So before you do anything, perfect that. All of your hard work will be for nothing if they don’t click on your icon.

Standing out in context and letting that eye-catching icon lead to people playing your game is the goal of ASO.

So that’s the gist of it. But there is a lot more you can do when it comes to perfecting your game on the app stores. If you have any questions, or just fancy learning some more tips and tricks, then feel free to get in touch. We’d love to have a chat.