We requested all of our gaming consultants at CrazyLabs to share their prime predictions and traits for 2024 within the cellular gaming trade. Under, every division shares their insights:
HYBRID-CASUAL
“The cellular gaming trade is altering considerably, particularly inside the hybrid-casual video games sector. The explanations for this are the market’s saturation with hyper-casual video games; particularly, the challenges of releasing new hyper-games within the present market. It’s additionally necessary to notice that past the maturation of the participant base, a key driver for change is the demand for extra strong development mechanics.
We’re additionally seeing a notable shift in monetisation methods, with hybrid-casual video games leaning extra in direction of in-app purchases, signaling a departure from conventional reliance on advert income.”
Eitan R., VP of Product (Hybrid)
USER ACQUISITION
“The period of pursuing “low cost-per set up (CPI)” for person acquisition is over; low cost installs now not yield the specified outcomes. The main target has shifted to return on advert spend (ROAS) campaigns and post-install occasion optimisation. As an alternative of simply focusing on the most affordable customers out there, our technique now entails leveraging in-app advertisements (IAA) and in-app buy (IAP) income to optimise advert spend, emphasising returns. This strategy enhances marketing campaign administration effectiveness and ensures a higher-quality person base.
On one other notice, in 2024, we count on main modifications in person acquisition dynamics as a result of implementation of the brand new privateness modifications of Apple’s SKAN 4.0 and Google’s Privateness Sandbox. The panorama is evolving and can have a major influence on the way forward for person acquisition.”
Nimrod Okay., VP of Person Acquisition
IDEATION & PRODUCT DESIGN
“In 2024, we anticipate the next traits:
- Personalisation: Gamers wish to categorical their creativity and personalize their recreation expertise. An efficient option to obtain that is by permitting customization of recreation components, corresponding to avatars and equipment.
- Social taking part in: Gamers wish to play and expertise video games collectively, and this will make social gaming, player-versus-player (PvP), and social gathering gaming grow to be extra distinguished points of the normal cellular video games we all know and love.
- Trending themes:
- As all the time, cash will stay a standard theme, personalised with an enthralling contact that connects with everybody.
- Supplies like liquids, slime, jelly, or comparable mixtures and textures.
- Area of interest sports activities might be within the highlight, and outdated, nostalgic recreation mechanics are anticipated to seek out their 2024 angle, making a comeback in a extra mature kind that aligns with the altering behaviors of recent gamers.”
Moria, T., VP of Artistic & Product Design
MARKETING CREATIVE
“There are three main traits that we began seeing in late 2023 that we consider will proceed and strengthen in 2024:
- AI: In 2024, AI might be an all-star member of artistic advertising and marketing groups. AI allows entrepreneurs to craft the right visible tales via eye-catching icons and retailer supplies to detailed storyboards for video advertisements, and past. Creatives should grasp using out there AI instruments to remain forward.
- Longer-form advertisements: Prior to now, recreation advertisements sometimes ranged from 10 to 30 seconds in period. Nevertheless, we have noticed a constructive influence on efficiency with advertisements lasting round 60 seconds.
- Excessive-quality produced advertisements: These advertisements present a better stage of manufacturing, incorporating extra polished options that might be made with Blender over Unity, all whereas nonetheless reflecting the core recreation.
- Playable advertisements: A successful strategy we have seen is specializing in longer-form playable advertisements (e.g., 60+ seconds), resulting in a lift in engagement and attracting gamers with greater lifetime worth (LTV).”
Raquel Okay., Head of Artistic Advertising, and Artistic Advertising Workforce
AD MONETISATION
“Contemplating the trade shift (from hyper-casual transferring in direction of hybrid-casual), I count on publishers to regulate their monetisation technique with a extra centered strategy, whereas sustaining a steady mannequin the place in-app purchases (IAPs) and subscriptions grow to be more and more dominant within the total technique.
Moreover, because it’s changing into more and more tougher to launch new video games, I count on superior participant segmentation to play a key position in maximising the potential. The surge in hybrid-casual gaming inevitably influences earnings tied to in-game promoting (IAA) monetisation. In response, I count on recreation publishers to search for artistic, non-intrusive options to maximise the advert income potential, in addition to growing the strictness and focus round advertisements high quality and habits, particularly in hybrid-casual video games.”
Igor I., VP of Advert-Monetisation
AI & INNOVATION
“In 2024, AI and gaming, notably in hyper and hybrid-casual genres, are positioned for breakthroughs. The emergence of ‘Multimodality,’ a brand new development enabling AI to analyse audio and video collectively will revolutionise AI inputs. For instance, a video of a seashore exercise may encourage an entire banana pool-float runner hyper-casual recreation concept outfitted with a recreation design doc, visible belongings, sound results, and even person acquisition advertisements.
Moreover, next-gen Textual content-to-Video will change AI output know-how, reworking recreation promoting and cutscene creation from easy textual content. These improvements, initially instruments for creating references, may considerably pace up recreation testing cycles, the event course of, and aligning recreation ideas with rising traits.”
Nir M., Director of AI & Innovation
DATA TECH
“The speedy development of generative AI can have a major influence on the work of information engineers, BI builders, and analysts in 2024. It is because instruments like ChatGPT can analyse knowledge per request, whereas different AI instruments can create SQL queries or construct dashboards with easy textual content requests from the person.
Information consultants might want to be certain that the info they provide to the organisation is suitable with these AI instruments and let go of a few of their present roles, corresponding to constructing ad-hoc queries or offering easy evaluation. As an alternative, they might want to redirect customers to an AI software that may deal with these duties with excessive confidence ranges and concentrate on the extra advanced duties the sector gives.”
Yifat S. VP of Information
DATA & ANALYTICS
“As seen in 2023 gamers are gravitating in direction of extra ‘acquainted video games’, making a tougher panorama for brand spanking new video games to interrupt via, which is predicted to proceed in 2024.
This shift calls for a extremely correct analytics strategy early on in understanding the focused demographics. This strategy might be applied by delving deeper into the early person funnel, particularly inspecting how gamers work together with the sport options whereas balancing the economic system. This may in the end lead to extra refined merchandise and bigger investments from the businesses, even through the gentle launch section.
Furthermore, decrease penetration within the new video games market, coupled with elevated promoting competitors is predicted to lead to steady shrinkage of the natural person market.
For all however a only a few trade giants, this may necessitate specializing in worthwhile person acquisition as the first technique for attaining a constructive total recreation return on funding.”
Gjorgji M., Head of Analytics and Information Science
GROWTH PLATFORMS
“The introduction of ROAS-based person acquisition campaigns has shifted the complexity and class of optimizing campaigns from the writer to the advert networks. This leaves publishers free to concentrate on the one factor with probably the most influence: creatives. In 2024, the power to check and optimise creatives can have a essential influence.
The period of counting on Meta to establish promising ideas is over. Publishers now want to mix insights from a number of sources earlier than deciding which prototypes have the potential to grow to be profitable video games.”
Uri D., VP of Product, Development Platforms
As we step into 2024, the insights from CrazyLabs’ gaming consultants paint an image of the evolving cellular gaming trade. From the rise of hybrid-casual video games to the shift in person acquisition methods and improvements within the synthetic intelligence house, the trade is ready for a transformative yr.