I spent all of last week at GDC so games are fresh on my mind and one of the trends I've been watching most closely is the evolution of hybrid casual games. Not hyper but hybrid casual games. Seemingly similar, but vastly different.
Hyper casual games, the simple kind that don't require more than a swipe or a tap and monetize with ads, have had a long and successful run, but took a major hit with the introduction of Apple Tracking Transparency.
Hybrid casual games tend to have more "game" to them which enables them to monetize with in-app purchases, and for quite a while now, titles like Subway Surfers and Candy Crush Saga have been at the top of our Highest-Earning Games charts.
Newcomer Color Block Jam wants to join the party.
Color Block Jam was released last summer by Rollic Games, which is owned by Zynga, which is owned by Take-Two Interactive. So, this is no indie game. Not-so-indie games usually enjoy a big ad budget which tend to skew performance - so I won't be looking at downloads but rather at what's more important for a hybrid casual game - revenue.
You can easily pay to get downloads but it's much harder to pay to get paid. It also sounds funny.
According to our App Intelligence, CBJ earned its first million in mid-January. The game hit the $5M milestone in early February, the $15M mark in early March and $25M before March was over. All of these numbers are before Apple and Google take their fees.
Mostly Apple though, because the majority of CBJ's revenue, 74% since release, came from the App Store. More specifically, the US App Store.
CBJ will end March with a little more than $15M in consumer spending, according to our estimates, which puts it fairly far from top performers (Candy Crush Saga grossed more than $100M last month), but its rapid revenue growth puts it on the right path.
I'm waiting to see an indie hybrid casual get to this scale. Will it happen in 2025?
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