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The success of hypercasual games is being measured in hundreds of millions or billions of downloads. And that’s why we’re shining a lightweight on FreePlay, a Minsk, Belarus-based sport studio.
Since December 2019, FreePlay has had greater than 420 million downloads of its hypercasual video games, which incorporates Join Clash (developed by FreePlay and printed by Supersonic Games), Count Masters, and Fidget Toys Trading 3D.
CEO Evgeni Sidorov mentioned in an interview with GamesBeat that the FreePlay has been rising quick and helps a crew of dozens of builders who’re testing new hypercasual sport concepts each few weeks.
Join Clash debuted in December 2019, and it has had 135 million downloads this yr and 280 million up to now. Count Masters has greater than 100 million downloads since March, and Fidget Trader simply crossed 40 million. Those numbers are adequate to place the video games into the highest 10 most-downloaded titles throughout numerous months up to now yr. In August, Fidget Trading was essentially the most downloaded sport, in line with measurement agency AppMagic. The video games usually take off on their very own in a viral style, and so they generate income by way of promoting.
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Other firms having success in hypercasual games embody Voodoo, Homa Games, Ducky, Rollic (owned by Zynga), SayGames, Azur Games, and Supersonic Games. It’s no shock that just a few of those firms, like FreePlay, are based mostly in Eastern Europe. The Games Fund estimates greater than 5,000 sport studios are in Eastern Europe, and the fund is concentrating its investments in that area. Minsk itself has a number of profitable sport firms resembling Wargaming and Playrix. Belarus has had political turmoil, however Sidorov mentioned that hasn’t disrupted the corporate in any respect.
And firms resembling Nexters, which simply went public, are additionally specializing in buying firms in Eastern Europe.
Getting began
Above: FreePlay’s Count Masters sport.
Image Credit: FreePlay
Sidorov and a few his sport developer associates began the studio a few years in the past. He had labored in cell apps for years and switched to sport studios in 2016. The preliminary studios weren’t profitable. They experimented with totally different approaches, totally different video games, and totally different genres. Then, in August 2019, it began to give attention to hypercasual video games and raised some angel funding. They experimented for some time and constructed up groups in each Belarus and Moscow. Sidorov loved holding the crew small.
Their first mission that took off was Join Clash, launched in December 2019. Supersonic Games printed it and helped it develop. Join Clash has 280 million downloads up to now. FreePlay self-published its second hit, Count Masters.
“This was the first step to understand how we could make something bigger,” mentioned Sidorov. “We realized we could create some really big mobile games. We made a lot of mistakes, understood how to promote games, and learned how to build games.”
Above: Evgeni Sidorov is the CEO of FreePlay.
Image Credit: FreePlay
Now the corporate has greater than 52 in-house employees, with a mix of builders and entrepreneurs. A crew of three folks comes up with a prototype, after which it goes via testing. The interval of testing lasts about three weeks. If it doesn’t take off, the crew strikes on to a brand new concept. If it really works, then FreePlay could add as many as 10 folks to a crew.
“We focus on a quality of the experience,” mentioned Sidorov. “We constantly watch the trends and try to stick to the top positions in the market.”
To provide you with the three massive video games, the corporate churned via one thing like 15 to twenty concepts.
Over time, the corporate hopes to increase its presence in genres resembling midcore video games, which have hardcore themes however may be performed briefly classes. The firm hopes to amass different studios and rent extra folks to work by itself tasks.
“We put all of our souls into making the games, and that’s a key to our success,” Sidorov mentioned. “We just really love what we do.”
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