Games developer and publisher FreePlay has reached the one billion download milestone over the course of three years, with half of these total downloads taking place in 2022 alone.
This volume of worldwide downloads comes from a portfolio of 18 games, Count Masters and Fidget Toys Trading counted among them.
As a part of the AIBY Group headquartered in the US, FreePlay comprises one publishing division and three internal studios. At present, collaborations with 15 other external studios are taking place.
Hypercasual releases
FreePlay’s speciality is in the hypercasual genre. Having doubled its total downloads last year, the developer is taking the approach of quality over quantity. Azur Games offered a snapshot of just how much hypercasual development has changed in the past three years, with an increase in development time highlighted. So too was the increase in team sizes and the increasing challenge of releasing a hit.
Last year, FreePlay tested more than 70 hypercasual games and proceeded to release three of them, making hits of Twerk Race, Snake Run Race and Stone Grass.
Experimentation with hybrid games is said to be on the horizon, with an in-house data lab in the works for better coordinating monetisation, marketing efforts and analytics. The aim of this is to provide deeper expertise to developers.
“We saw what was going on in the gaming industry in 2022 and our aim was to find a way to keep growing without losing the quality. We are really happy to see so many players enjoy the work we did, and this billion is the best reward. All this makes me so proud of the team and our partners,” said FreePlay CEO Evgeniy Sidorov.
Sunday Managing Director Christoph Sachsenhausen recently spoke with us about the success of the hypercasual games market but also the increasing difficulty of reaching an audience.
