Exploring the Rise of Hybrid-Casual Games

Exploring how hybrid-casual games are reshaping mobile gaming with simplicity and long-term engagement.

Hi there!

This week on Eximius Echo, we dive into the evolution of mobile gaming with the rise of hybrid-casual games. As the mobile gaming industry faces saturation and rising costs, hybrid-casual games are emerging as a solution by combining simple gameplay with deeper retention strategies. We explore why this shift is happening, the benefits for developers and players, and the challenges studios face in getting it right.

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There are two fundamental truths that govern the mobile gaming industry: it is a large $92 billion industry that can produce outsized outcomes for both large studios and small independent developers, and, in spite of the enormous diversity, the gaming industry is at a choking point due to saturation. Let us prove that with three facts:-

• Revenue and Downloads Decline: 2023 was a challenging year for the mobile market as a whole with revenues and downloads seeing a 2% and a 10% reduction, respectively, on a YoY basis across both Google Play and iOS. 

• Fewer ‘Hit’ Games: Amongst the 20 games that generated the highest revenues in 2024, only 2 were launched in 2023 or later.

• Increasing CPIs: Key genres like arcade, action, and simulation have all seen their CPIs increase by 16% YoY. This trend is mirrored across casual and mid-core as well. 

Thus, while mobile gaming was stereotypically a ‘quantity game’ for most players with a specific focus on low CPIs and great D1 retention, publishers and studios have seen their focus shift to building games with longer retention curves and more hooks for monetising. Yet the developers want to keep engagement times, player effort required and costs low to capture a broader audience. Thus, the industry has moved from the trend of building hyper-casual games at mass or a few large mid-core games to building what can be called hybrid-casual games which inherit their simple core loops from hyper-casual games and integrate key gameplay levers to promote retention and progression.

In this newsletter, we’ll decode hybrid-casual games and the key pillars of that design philosophy with the help of some of the industry’s finest.

1) What are hybrid-casual games?

“Hybrid-casuals are the evolution or the in-between genre between hyper-casual and casual games. These include elements of casual/mid-core games like progression, upgrades, live-op events, social and leaderboard systems that keep evolving the player's experience.”

Vimal Sathish (Co-Founder, Homebrew Games)

As Vimal puts it, Hybrid-casual games are fundamentally an offshoot of the hyper-casual philosophy. Their main purpose is to bring in users for a simple core-loop and minimal cognitive load while retaining them to resolve the fundamental issue of hyper-casual games – low ARPUs (Average Revenue per User). As per Oliver Jones (CEO, Bombay Play), the hybrid-casual design philosophy emphasizes D7 ROAS figures (Return on Ad Spend) in addition to CPIs (Cost-per-Installs) and D1 retention figures to optimise games’ profitability. A close vigil on ROAS helps developers account for the revenue earned for every dollar spent on advertising. Thus, the design philosophy is instead centralised on creating quality gameplay progression and meta layers for the user’s retention and creating a pathway for quicker payback periods.

These games can also diverge considerably. From Match-3 games like Magic Tiles – 3 (95 million downloads in 2023) to Racing games like Race Master 3D (110 million downloads in 2023), hybrid-casual presents developers with a high degree of flexibility in creating a game. The only caveats are a simple enough core-loop and a defined in-game meta that can encourage retention.

Since the games need to be deeper now, not only is developing them a much more complicated process but so is testing them. Studios and publishers now focus on creating sustainable games that can maintain a propitious retention curve down the line as well. As a result, even the biggest proponents of the hyper-casual philosophy like Voodoo have now changed their policies to launch fewer titles (Voodoo will only launch 4 games per year now). In this way, the industry has embraced the hybrid-casual philosophy.

2) Why is it preferred to the hyper-casual philosophy?

“The switch to hybrid-casual is a response to both player and market needs. Hyper-casual games rely heavily on ads to monetize, keeping their core loops simple and addictive but sacrificing depth and long-term engagement. It’s like the ultimate distillation of performance marketing and games, but it was never sustainable. People who got hooked never stayed and wanted deeper, more meaningful experiences.”

Yadu Rajiv (Lead Game Designer, PlaySimple Games)

The hyper-casual philosophy was fundamentally unsustainable. As indicated by this 2019 infographic from Deconstructor of Fun, the market was already showing signs of a slowdown well before the deprecation of IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) by Apple with iOS 14. With IDFA, advertisers were able to track a user’s journey which helped them create more targeted advertising campaigns for better CPIs. With Apple granting users the ability to opt out of this arrangement, advertisers lost a large chunk of their visibility on users. Further, since the market was maturing, so were gamers’ preferences who craved deeper experiences that they could keep coming back to.

Thus, confronted by rising UA (User-Acquisition) costs and an alienated fan base, publishers and studios decided to shift their philosophy towards something with more substance. While this forced large companies to lose their identities (like Voodoo), it also enabled them to expand their markets. 

The hybrid-casual games provide developers and gamers with some key benefits that make them the natural solution for people looking to pivot.

For developers, these games have a low technical barrier of entry which allows even the smallest of developers a level playing field. As per Dhananjai Hari (Co-Founder, Qila Games), hybrid-casual games allow for rapid iteration for demos to find what resonates with one’s audience over time as compared to casual / mid-core. This opens the doors for sustainable scalability.

Further, these games also allow for more flexibility. Shagun Shah (Co-Founder, Homebrew Games) asserted that the hybrid-casual philosophy allows developers to create unique experiences, tailored to different audiences, while still retaining the core essence of what defines hybrid casual. 

Gamers also tend to benefit massively from this approach. Dhananjai adds that since hybrid casual games involve a greater monetization focus, they also tend to have far healthier IAP vs IAA splits. This betters the gaming experience for a lot of gamers who are saved from intrusive ads at every juncture of the game.

These games also focus on more extensive live operations and high replayability which keeps content always fresh and motivates users to keep coming back. 

As a result, hybrid-casual is already among the best-performing genres. Alongside seeing the smallest reduction in downloads, the genre also saw a massive 30% YoY increase in revenues which encapsulates why it is faring so well amongst developers.

3) What are the potential pitfalls for developers in hybrid-casual?

“As emphasis is paid to D7 ROAS, the games need to have deeper metas to improve the retention curve. Thus, the development time for 7 days’ worth of content increased from 3 weeks to 3 months”

Oliver Jones (CEO and Co-Founder, Bombay Play)

From a game design POV, hybrid-casual games present a puzzle. In the pursuit of bringing two diverging gamer personas to the same game, developers must create their core loop and meta-layer with pedantic care to be as welcoming as possible. As a reason, developers and other key personnel who are proficient in designing such games specifically are still a rare find in the gaming industry

“It is hard to strike a good balance between the simplicity of core mechanics that hyper-casual players are accustomed to, while still catering to what casual players want. If you chose a really simple core mechanic you may not have the same retention and monetisation potential your competition has, and complex core mechanics could drive away a large chunk of players and bloat your CPIs. Finding the right balance is critical, and hard.”

Peter Pawan (Former CPO and Co-Founder, Super Huge Studios)

Doing justice to this challenge has also significantly increased development times as highlighted by Oliver. This has made being selected by a publisher a more notable feat since most have significantly scaled down their launch calendars. Thus, while quick initial testing can give important customer feedback, choosing to build a hybrid-casual is a significant investment for any studio.

Summary

Hybrid-casual games are currently the toast of the town in the gaming community. They have given developers a new way to escape the deficiencies of the hyper-casual model and create a new space in the market. Over the past year, they have not only proven to be quite resilient but also a rapidly growing space within the industry.

While they do bring clear benefits and advantages, given how complex it is to get them right, and how much of an investment they can turn out to be for any studio, it is important to approach the market with a clear market thesis and a long-term plan to make sure your game stands out from the competition.

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We, at Eximius Ventures, are bullish on the sub-genre and the ability of Indian studios to create compelling experiences in this space. For anyone building in hybrid-casual specifically or the gaming industry in general, we would love to speak! Please feel free to reach out to us at pitches@eximiusvc.com

A special thank you to Dhananjai, Oliver, Peter, Shagun, Vimal, and Yadu for their thoughts as well! It was a privilege to collaborate with them on this piece.