‘Hypercasual’ is mobile gaming’s new dominant force

In previous articles, we’ve defined the rise of the hyper-casual gaming genre and discussed its massive growth, and we’ve recently seen the resurgence of the hardcore genre as well. As a result, other mobile game genres, particularly midcore titles, are feeling the squeeze. But before we get into why, let’s define our terms.

On one end of the scale are hyper-casual games, which take little time to produce and have a minimalistic interface with instinctive gameplay (no tutorials or onboarding). These games are uniformly lightweight, so people can pick up and play almost instantly. User sessions are short, lifetime value is low, and market acceleration is entirely a factor of virality. As most hyper-casual games rely on ad-supported models, monetization, and profit ramp in line with scale.