Insights From The Mobile Keynote Panel at the Gamemasters Summit
Leaders in mobile games came together for the keynote panel at the first Gamemasters Summit for what turned out to be even more of an illuminating and passionate debate than we were expecting. Moderated by Ryan Davies , Head of Performance Marketing at Kwalee, the keynote panel at the Gamemasters Summit was made up of mobile games experts each with their own take on the hot topics in the industry in 2024. Phillip Black from Deconstructor of Fun, Adam Smart , Director of Product Marketing at AppsFlyer, Javier Castro , Head of EMEA App Development at Google, and Eric Futoran , CEO at Embrace all shared a unique perspective.
They discussed everything from why some Hyper Casual games have been able to make it as Hybrid Casual titles to evolving ad networks and what to look forward to in mobile gaming this year. Watch now, or read our brief recap.
The Hyper Casual Journey:
Hyper Casual is evolving instead of disappearing. However, there are a few challenges, like market saturation with so many similar games, which has led to player saturation, making it difficult to stand out against your competition. Players are more discerning today and are looking for higher-quality graphics, deeper gameplay and engagement. The second is the removal of the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) by Apple, and updates to Google Play's policies have made targeting and ad revenue less predictable.?
Hyper Casual is definitely not dead. Echoing Javier, Eric agreed that It is evolving. It’s about figuring out the best ways to monetise the game and repeating that process until the game has run its course, before moving on to the next one. Philip Black on the other hand, had a different view on Hyper Casual games. Although there are plenty of chart-topping Hyper Casual titles, when you look at the macro elements, there is a year-on-year decline. However, he recommended that if you’re a very small team it is a genre where you can get something out the door quickly and is still incredible for figuring out core mechanics and allows for plenty of experimentation.
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Successfully transforming Hyper Casual games to Hybrid Casual:
Find the right meta template and pair it with the core gameplay. This is the time when devs are starting to figure out which templates work with Hybrid Casual games and which ones don’t, said Eric. Many developers forget about the core mechanics of the game and focus on the design at the beginning, which is not the right approach. This is why they have challenges evolving from a Hyper Casual game to Hybrid ones. In the current scenario, it’s important to ensure that the games are actually fun to play, said Adam. The key is to create something that is enjoyable and not just for monetisation purposes, and that is something that has been missing. Having the right amount of creativity with a good UA strategy is what sets games apart.
The Growth and Evolution of Ad Networks:
Ryan Davies claims that Facebook and Google are no longer at the number one spot. There’s been a lot of consolidation with AppLovin; they’ve bought a lot of tools, including MOPA, to consolidate over the last couple of years. Ad networks will pop up in competition with AppLovin, and they will succeed. TikTok also has the potential to do something in this phase; they're poised to take advantage of it and disrupt the industry, or some ad network can leverage TikTok to become the next AppLovin. Due to automation, there are more networks now than in the past, so it's quite common to see midsize or even smaller studios have five or six different networks at the same time.
This is just a flavour of the keynote from the event and you can watch the full hour panel now. Are you a mobile games industry professional - either established or starting out? Want to learn more about mobile game development and publishing? You can now exclusively watch on demand all of the videos from the Gamemasters Summit on our mobile publishing platform - Hitseeker by Kwalee.
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