The Games that top the download charts are typically not the ones topping the grossing charts. So, what are the games that top the download charts day after day? They’re the “hyper-casual” type you play to kill time, procrastinate and to get through your commute with. For the past two quarters, we determined the top 12 global hyper-casual game publishers.
As you can see, Voodoo wins by a landslide with 150% more downloads than the next competitor. Voodoo has reigned supreme for some time now as it pertains to this style of game, taking Ketchapp’s throne in 2017. While these publishers do make some money from in-app purchases, the bulk of their revenue comes from showing advertisements to their players.
For these games, retention can be fleeting. It is because of this that it is to the publisher’s benefit to produce and launch games at a faster pace than those of a top grosser such as Playrix or Supercell. Voodoo cranks out games at an insane rate, with 15 released in 2019 so far (through 4/26). Crazy Labs and SayGames are not far behind with 10 and 9 respectively. Having more games means they can serve ads for their own games in each game they publish, creating a self-fulfilling network effect.
Just how good are these publishers at producing massive amounts of downloads? We looked at the top 50 Games rank spots in the iOS charts in the U.S. in the month of March to get an indicator:
Voodoo had an average of 8.5 games per day land in the top 50 as defined above. Its high was 11 and its low was 5. It has the #1 ranked Game 13 times in the month. Combining all 12 of our top publishers listed above, together they had an average of 26 games per day in top 50. Their high was 30 and their low was 23. They had the #1 ranked Game 29 times in the month. Wow.
