For years hyper-casual games have been providing fun and compelling gaming experiences for millions of players. But now hyper-casual games find themselves in the midst of a major shakeup. 2023 saw a 16% drop in installs, following the downward trend of 2022. The scene is changing fast, due to stricter privacy rules and rising Costs-Per-Install (CPI). Relying solely on user acquisition (UA) for growth is getting trickier.For these reasons many hyper-casual studios are transitioning to become hybrid-casual studios, making games with a longer tail. The focus is on player retention and increasing lifetime value. To really make it, hyper-casual games need to find a sweet spot alongside their ad-focused model and build stronger connections with users craving a more premium experience. Here's our three-step guide to achieving that with subscription!
Building lasting connections with users takes effort. It's about understanding their likes and communicating in a way that resonates. By using specific segmentation and personalized content, you make users feel seen and valued. Game subscription models are gaining popularity as a reliable means of engaging users consistently. However, a subscription model, despite its strengths, is not a simple or quick scheme for extracting money from users monthly because they "forgot to cancel."
From a monetisation perspective, these models are about establishing and nurturing relationships. They offer a potentially profitable and long-lasting relationship between a company and a player, built on trust. This trust requires the user to believe they will receive a certain value at certain frequencies and the product must consistently meet these expectations to maintain the ongoing commitment of payment.
Long-term connections open up new opportunities for engaging players and generating revenue.
To navigate this shift successfully, it's essential to diversify your game's revenue streams. Moving beyond heavy reliance on advertisements, incorporating in-app purchases (IAP), and subscriptions will offer your players a wide range of choices and provide maximum flexibility for your game. However, it's important to strategically implement each monetization method according to the different stages of the player lifecycle.
While there's an abundance of insights on advertising and IAPs, subscription models deserve special attention. It's important to understand that players are unlikely to subscribe unless they are actively engaged with your game. Therefore, it's best to introduce subscription offers when players are immersed and enjoying their experience.
Adding a subscription to a hyper-casual game is straightforward. Typically the offer involves removal of all ads, although variations are often seen, where voluntary player initiated rewarded video ads are kept along with the publisher's cross-promotion. The subscription benefits also often include discounts on in-app purchases (IAPs), access to exclusive content, or ongoing upgrades and bonuses while the subscription remains active. . The specifics depend on the game and the benefits already integrated into it.
Subscriptions have the potential to greatly boost your game's revenue strategy. By introducing a subscription model, you create a new foundation for spending habits. Once players have subscribed, they are likely to maintain or even increase their spending, viewing the subscription fee as a sunk cost already invested in their gaming experience. Consequently, offering discounts on certain in-app purchases (IAPs) becomes an attractive proposition for subscribers, incentivizing further spending and creating a win-win scenario: players receive more value for their money, while developers see an uptick in revenue, encouraging even more investment in the game.
By offering a subscription model that provides access to a vast library of games for just $5 a month, giants like Google and Apple have challenged one of the core attractions of Free-to-Play models: the concept of 'free.' Once players subscribe, all games within the subscription feel 'free' as the subscription fee becomes a sunk cost. Observing this trend, some hyper-casual/hybrid-casual publishers have begun to adopt subscription models, though many are limited to just one game.
The ability for players to compare subscription services highlights a potential drawback for single-game subscriptions. Against the backdrop of cross-game subscriptions that give access to multiple games, a single-game subscription is less appealing. While some bigger games (like Tencent's Honour of Kings or Epic's Fortnite) can successfully support their own subscription models, most games cannot.
For most games, being part of a broader game ecosystem enhances the subscription's value proposition. This not only provides players with better value for their money by granting access to additional games but also introduces a fresh stream of users from other games within the ecosystem—users who might not have discovered your game otherwise. Leveraging the network effect by bundling multiple games into one subscription allows for a richer understanding of your players. This insight helps you to identify when players may be losing interest and introduce them to new games within your portfolio. For hyper-casual/hybrid-casual studios, this strategy represents a significant opportunity: acquire a player once and retain their engagement across a diverse range of games for the duration of their subscription.
Unleashd, is free to use and offers a one-stop solution. Its seamless implementation streamlines your journey to improved retention and increased revenue. Keen to explore how Unleashd can bring value to your game? Chat with one of our experts!
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