Casual games are one of the most popular genres of mobile games. With their ever-evolving dynamic gameplay and engaging illustrations, and interactive UI, this genre is guaranteed to always be high in the charts, which opens a window of opportunity to obtain users for casual gaming apps from around the world.
It has been a decade since Temple Run and Angry Birds dominated the world and mobile gaming space. What makes casual gaming apps stand out? Some popular categories of casual games are: Match 3, Shooter, Puzzle, Word, Sports, Card, and Merge. It is safe to say that easy, but exciting, gameplay is behind this genre’s popularity.These are games designed for quick play, so they are engineered to be easily understood and intuitive. They are ideal apps for people who want a brief distraction, such as during a commute or waiting in line. A casual game app usually features bright colors, sounds, animation, and a simple interface.
Nowadays, casual game developers are producing more and more apps and making them increasingly sophisticated, creating a very crowded market. According to Apptopia, as of January 2022, there are more than 2.2 M gaming apps available in app stores.
Casual games have three typical characteristics:
- Frequent product iteration
- Short user lifecycle, typically 3 months max
- Quick to monetize, mostly relying on in-app purchases (IAP) & in-app ads (IAA)
How should you scale your casual app?
Statista tells us that the global casual gaming industry is worth $16.25 B in 2021, and is predicted to reach $26.21 B by 2026. Meanwhile, the trend of IAP is remaining steady, and IAA is growing strong. This presents advertisers with a huge opportunity to grab market share by reaching global markets.
Although it is daunting to consider the complexity of multiple cultures, advertisers should consider localization as their best weapon to win international audiences. By partnering with global demand-side platform (DSP) like Aarki, you can leverage mobile programmatic to help you reach optimal target audiences at global scale, as well as localize your ads in up to 26 different languages. To gain more actionable insights about localization, download our free guide "Scaling Casual Apps in South Korea" here.
Below is an infographic for you to gain new insights as to why you should take your casual app globally.
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Case Study
Brain Games is a casual gaming company based in Tel Aviv. They wanted to widen the reach of their Word Farm Adventure app globally, so they targeted users in the United States, Australia, Canada, and United Kingdom. They sought Aarki’s help for a user acquisition campaign to deliver high-value users, with a strong return on investment (ROI), at an optimal cost per install (CPI).
The Solution
Aarki was able to guarantee a high probability of installs and engagement by leveraging our custom bidding models and dynamic creative optimization. Through that, we were able to serve an optimal, personalized creative variant to each user.
We produced iterative creative assets based on the most compelling game features, through extensive research about the app and its users. Then, through our custom bidding models, we used Brain Games’ first-party data to train our models that predict user quality and lifetime value.
The Results
- In-app purchases became more consistent, and the ROI steadily increased.
- The CPI was steady below the goal and decreased over time.
- The retention rate (RR) improved in the Event Optimization phase.
Read the full success story here.
With the non-stop growth of casual games, it is key to tap into global markets to be able to obtain as many of the right users as you can. If you want to scale your casual app at a global scale, feel free to shoot us a message here.
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