Mobile Mavens on the biggest games industry trends of 2024 part two: Rewarded UA in vogue, generative AI, and hybridcasual success

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As soon as once more it is that point of 12 months the place all of us begin feeling reflective and look again on the 12 months simply gone.

So to that finish, we thought we might ask our Cellular Experts – a set of video games business consultants – just a few questions in regards to the 12 months passed by. Right here we ask:

What have been the most important video games business traits of 2023?

You may learn half one proper right here.

Uncover extra in regards to the newest video games business traits at Pocket Gamer Connects London on January twentieth to twenty first, 2025.

There isn’t a doubt that there have been components of the business that struggled – and but, there have been additionally vibrant spots for recreation builders that embraced digitally-native, real-money rewards to drive engagement and retention. It is a development I anticipate to proceed.  

Rewarded UA has for certain been an enormous development in 2024 and offered a vibrant spot in an in any other case bleak 12 months for cellular gaming UA.

I’m not simply saying that as a result of we’re part of that house and had an ideal 12 months, different corporations providing rewarded site visitors additionally appear to be doing nice, which I like to see, as we’re nonetheless within the huge blue ocean section of this market.

There’s a lot potential for enhancing consumer engagement with rewards and I’m certain subsequent 12 months can be even higher. 

This 12 months’s key development has been a decline in recreation retention charges coupled with rising site visitors prices. On this context, Ludus has emerged as a real phenomenon. The truth that our product demonstrates development even in as we speak’s difficult market circumstances is nothing in need of miraculous.

On the event aspect, AI and generative applied sciences has been a dominant theme. Everybody has been in search of methods to combine it into manufacturing and content material creation.

Nonetheless, it is honest to say that nobody has absolutely cracked the code but. We have additionally been experimenting with these applied sciences and plan to include them into our future video games.

This 12 months we witnessed a defining shift from hypercasual to hybridcasual video games, revolutionizing in-game monetization methods. Studios moved away from a purely ad-based income mannequin towards a balanced mixture of in-app purchases and in-game adverts.

This design transition introduced new challenges, significantly round creating content material and mechanics to assist this hybrid method successfully.

As predicted, there’s little question 2024 has been a tricky 12 months for the video games business at massive.

Nonetheless, there’s additionally been loads of optimistic modifications inside the free-to-play ecosystem: hybridcasual video games are actually firmly established and there’s been a visual mindset shift in direction of monitoring lifetime worth of gamers and long-term development.

In our enterprise – video games distribution and monetisation – we see a transparent development of recreation builders and publishers investing in different distribution and monetisation. Different shops distribution, net payshops, and many others. are simply examples of a development that we consider will develop in 2025. 

2024 has been an excellent 12 months for bringing genuine digital likenesses to video games.

Titles like Justice League: Kill the Suicide Squad delivered exceptional facial animation, and I anticipate seeing comparable high-fidelity facial performances in subsequent 12 months’s releases, akin to Loss of life Stranding 2 and GTA VI.

Third-party shops are beginning to acquire visibility as a result of legislative modifications.

AI is turning into an integral a part of on a regular basis work life.