Storms joins Adjust for a Fireside Chat at the Hyper Games Conference 2022

Hyper Games Conference (HGC) is a leading international online conference dedicated to developing, promoting, and growing the hyper/hybrid casual games industry. The HGC India and Asia Edition was held last week, bringing together more than 2,500 participants from over 90 countries, 700 gaming brands, and 250 hyper casual game studios. The conference allowed game developers to band together with publishers and advertisers and discuss burning questions facing the hyper casual gaming industry.

Adjust was delighted to sponsor the HGC this year, and host a Fireside Chat with Product Marketing Manager, Ekaterina Sabirova, and Singapore-based gaming startup Storm’s Vice President of Product and Marketing, Shn Juay. Delving into the topic of "2022 Hyper Casual Gaming and User Acquisition Trends,” you can watch the video below, or read on for our key takeaways from the session.

Runner games, in which the player character has to run for an unlimited time while avoiding obstacles, dominated the industry in 2021. Shn believes that runner games will remain popular this year; however, they will evolve and become more complex with hybrid game mechanics. Since the market for runner games is highly competitive, hybrid-runner game mechanics will help attract new players.

Shn highlighted how developers are actively converting their games to HTML5 formats for distribution across the world's largest social networks' instant gaming platforms. While game developers capitalize on the social networks' active user base, users can play the game without leaving the platform itself.

With the rise of instant gaming platforms on social media such as Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok, hyper casual gamers' desire for social connections has also increased. Shn suggested that giving players a sense of community through leaderboards and guilds could be the key to boosting a game's marketability.

According to Shn, marketers in mobile gaming need to explore and test various creatives and find the ones that work best. Continuing to innovate and rollout new features will attract new users while keeping existing ones engaged. Marketers can promote their games by integrating elements from pop culture trends and tapping into a given target market's festive season.

It's also essential for marketers to identify who their primary audience segments are for optimized targeting. For hyper casual games, females make up the largest segment of players, so adding elements identified as appealing to this audience will help drive traffic to the game.

One of the key points highlighted by Ekaterina is that Adjust data shows that UA was not as significantly impacted by iOS 14.5+ as predicted, and that opt-in rates are not as low as some initial estimates indicated. In fact, UA and the opt-in have been particularly good for the hyper causal vertical. The consent rate is substantially higher for apps with high install rates from advertisements as users are used to finding content through such ads. As adoption rates rise and users become increasingly aware of the benefits of opting-in, we predict that consent rates will continue to increase.

Mobile ad fraud is an issue that continues to confront developers and marketers across all verticals. Ekaterina explained that those working in the hyper casual vertical can address mobile ad fraud via education, understanding, and investing in fraud prevention software. Adjust’s Fraud Prevention Suite, for example, provides tailored solutions against all fraud types to keep data sets safe and reliable while saving marketing teams immeasurable amounts of time.

Similarly, she  highlighted that leveraging automation is key when it comes to scaling an app, and that automation fundamentally results in less work for the marketing team and more accurate reporting. Although accurate reporting is vital for any vertical, it is particularly poignant for hyper casual games, which work within uniquely slim profit margins. Automation can make or break the success of a title. By saving time sifting through enormous amounts of data, marketers and developers can focus on strategy, A/B testing, and creative experimentation to further grow their apps.

To learn more about Adjust and how we're supporting clients' growth, you can check out our case studies or request a demo today.