How to launch a hyper-casual game in 2022 – MBC 2022

IronSource Strategic Partnerships Director Lior Shekel attended the Mobidictum Business Conference and explained the key steps of a hyper-casual game launch.
A headshot of Ironsource's Lior Shekel

IronSource Strategic Partnerships Director Lior Shekel held a session at the Mobidictum Business Conference, explaining the five steps to launch a hit hyper-casual game in the new ecosystem – including tips for marketability testing, soft launching, and global launching.

The steps have been summarized as follows:

  1. Initial marketability test (Social networks)
  2. Advanced marketability test (SDK networks)
  3. Monetization strategy (In-game to LTV potential)
  4. Soft launch (Monetization and UA)
  5. Automate and scale-up

Shekel elaborated on all the steps, stating that because of its simple integration process, fast and cheap learning, stability, and vast audience, Facebook is the optimal social media network for the initial marketability test. According to the ironSource Director, networks such as TikTok and Snapchat should be used as a follow-up after Facebook.

He continued his speech with the second step, explaining that because of the changes in the ecosystem, an SDK network test is even more crucial now than it was a couple of years ago. SDK networks are beneficial for revenue as they have a large scale and will be able to bring any game to a broad audience.

After making sure that the game’s marketability is in a good spot, Shekel advised implementing ad monetization in the third step by working on the game’s content, A/B testing, and progression.

The fourth step saw a soft launch period, as Shekel explained:

“We’ve identified two strategies, each with upsides and downsides. In most successful cases, we see soft launches happening simultaneously in both the social and SDK networks. While the all-in launch strategy is more aggressive and coins the company top charts and high organics, you’ll probably get lower profit KPIs. The conservative launch puts profit first and is stable, but suffers from a slower scale.”

The experienced Director finished with the final step, arguing that automating will help the team focus on the app itself while buying users more efficiently at scale. You can reach Shekel’s full speech along with more relevant content by clicking the button below.

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