Seven predictions on the key trend in 2021:
1. Puzzle Games Becomes the Top Grossing Genre on Mobile
Puzzle games made $5.1 billion in 2020, growing 29% compared to 2019. In mobile games overall, puzzle games account for just over 50% of all revenue for 2020.
2021 will be the year of acquisitions’ soft launches specifically from Zynga (Peak) and Playrix (Zagrava, Plexonic) in the second half of 2021. In addition to the aforementioned games, most of the newly-launched puzzle games belong to merge games, which is expected to be the main target for mergers and acquisitions in 2021.
Applovin and new smaller splinter studios will continue to push the boundaries of the casual metagame. In order to effectively retain players with high engagement, there will be a trend in puzzle games in 2021 to evolve “elder game” features.
2. Hypercasual Will Continue to Exist, but Given That the Hybridcasual Can Be Transformed by Hypercasual Gamers, It Will Make a Breakthrough in 2021
In 2020, the number of downloads of Hypercasual went from 7.8 billion to a whopping 11.8 billion, continuing its double-digit growth rate from 2019 with it up by 52%. Hypercasual along peaked at $3 billion in ad revenue in 2020.
In Hypercasual, there are two trends in the future:
Trend 1 The Rise of Feel-Good Mechanics
In 2020, Hypercasual witnessed its hay day, which was introduced by the success of SayGames’ Perfect Slices.
Trend 2 Misleading Ads Turn into Actual Games
Instead of following the misleading advertising trends with a core game that looks nothing like the ad, Lion Games went full circle and launched not one but two games based on the most successful ad formats throughout 2020.
With the development of the Hypercasual market, mature developers started looking for alternatives and began considering the demand for a better monetization mode. Hybridcasual will break through in 2021, as developers of Hypercasual will have to put in some of the features that can drive in-app purchase to obtain more revenue. This evolution will result in fewer newly-launched games and a longer duration for successful games from weeks to months.
In 2021, there is another emphasis that new IDFA rules will lead to the collapse of CPMs. This change will break the existing liquidity structure, and the market will also undergo a big restructuring. Top developers will become stronger while small developers will become weaker.
In addition to Voodoo, larger developers will be looking to grow in other categories by acquiring or building smaller development studios.
3. Top Mobile RPGs Will Go Cross-Platform
The in-app purchase (IAP) revenues for Mid-Core games in the Western markets reached $10.4 billion, growing formidably by 26% year-over-year. And the Role-Playing Games (RPGs) kept up with the growth generating $3.3 billion in 2020 with a growth of 29% year-on-year.
In 2021, launching and scaling an RPG game will become even harder.
Monetising RPGs is largely driven by its big players. This monetization system is supported by optimized user acquisition, but in the post-IDFA era, how to acquire big players and identify them in the early stage will become a puzzle. Also, anyone who wants to play RPGs and make a big splash will have to be wealthy, so the new IDFA rules won’t have as much impact.
Monetization will go broad instead of deep.
With the inability to track where the players are coming from, grouping them into A/B segments will be more challenging.
Collaboration with IPs.
IDFA will put the focus back on lowering CPIs, and that’s where IPs help. We’ll see more IPs being integrated into existing titles through events.
In the near future, the current top RPGs will start offering PC clients and go cross-platform. RAID from Plarium is showing the way and it is only a matter of time before companies like Scopely follow suit.
4. Throwdown for Supremacy of Mid-Core
Strategy games, which are composed out of 7 sub-genres, generated $5 billion in net revenue during 2020 growing IAP revenues by 21% while the downloads were up 9% year-over-year.
Supercell has dominated such games for several years, but Lilith is expected to catch up with Supercell by the end of the first quarter of this year. Supercell’s revenue will witness a further decline, which will lead to some changes in the company’s leadership and development strategy.
Just like last year, 4X continues to dominate the strategy genre, making more than the rest of 6 sub-genres combined. In the 4X subcategory, FunPlus is the biggest winner of 2020. After Top War’s impressive performance, we look forward to seeing more innovations in the core playing methods of such games. Very similar to RPGs, 4x games will also provide cross-platform play to offset the impact of IDFA new rules.
The second largest sub-genre is the good and old Build & Battle. This genre has matured to a point where it could use a massive innovation to both the progression mechanics and social gameplay.
While we’ve been constantly sceptical about the potential for MOBAs outside key Asian markets, the sub-genre continued to grow at the highest pace in the genre. The release of League of Legends: Wild Rift has a bright future, but it is anticipated that it will still be a niche game, with an annual revenue of no more than 50 million. Moreover, it is very likely that Riot Games will not launch a new game in 2021.
