Casual games thrive on simple and fun gameplay mechanics that are easy to understand and master. Much like hypercasual games, these mobile games don’t typically require a high level of time investment or concentration, meaning gamers might return to the app at irregular and spontaneous occasions.
- Women typically spend longer in casual games per day than men
- Over 17 million users currently download this genre on mobile
- Users over 40 years spend the longest time in these games per day
Who Are Casual Gamers?
Casual gamers engage with this mobile gaming vertical because it doesn’t require much concentration, allowing them to escape everyday boredom or stress. These games are popular to play while commuting, during lunch breaks, or watching TV.
According to data, women are noticeably more engaged than men in casual games – they spend on average 22 minutes a day in gameplay. That’s roughly three minutes longer than the average male casual gamer. Looking at age, over-50s and 40s spend the most time in casual games per day at over 22 minutes.
We’ve already mentioned that these games don’t require a high time investment from users. But if we deep-dive into recent demographics data, we can see that out of the most interesting mobile gaming regions worldwide, Africa is currently home to the players spending the longest average time in casual games per day – at 26 minutes.
What Types of Casual Games Are There?
These games are destined for the mass market, so they must be real crowd-pleasers. The casual game genre is made up of the following verticals.
- Arcade
- Action
- Card and board games
- Word and trivia
- Hidden object
- Adventure
- Education
- Match-3
- Puzzle
You may have noticed that more and more casual games are introducing meta elements to their core gameplay. This means that, as the gaming genre matures, elements from other mobile gaming verticals – such as collectibles or characters from midcore games – are finding their way into popular casual titles (and vice versa). This enables casual gamers to feel a greater sense of level-to-level progression and engagement.
Conclusion
From card and board games and match-3 to word and trivia games, there’s a whole host of hit casual games that draw global users in to play up to 30 minutes every day.
Compared with hypercasual games, casual games boast more complex gameplay mechanics – many of them now feature meta elements, such as collectibles or characters. But in general, both categories require little concentration and rely on their addictive core gameplay mechanics to keep users coming back and playing more.
