Hypercasual Market
The state of the hypercasual genre in 2024
Sergey Martinkevich takes a closer look at how the hypercasual genre has performed over the first half of the year
Company Profile
Azur Games
Website azurgames.com
About
Founded in 2017, the company is currently one of the top 3 mobile worldwide publishers by downloads — in 2023 it surpassed the 4.5 billion download mark. The company portfolio has over 150 high-performing projects in various game genres: from midcore PvP to hyper-casual.
Azur Games is a team of gifted professionals working remotely and from offices worldwide, including HQ in Larnaca and the main office in Dubai. Together, they do everything to make sure talented game developers see their projects at the top of the charts.
Related People
Rustam Saidrakhmonov
ASO Lead
Milana Gelmanova
Producer
Milana Gelmanova
Producer
Dmitry Zusman
Project Owner
Sergey Martinkevich
Publishing Lead
Artem Nikolayev
Founder
Dmitry Yaminsky
CEO
Denis Shcherbakov
Producer
Zlata Kazantseva
ASO manager
Alexey Platonov
lead analyst
Milana Gelmanova
Producer
Anastasia Dovletova
Art Director
+9 more
Articles featuring Azur Games
New Markets
Azur Games moves into real money gaming with new iGaming spin-off
The new brand will be a separate division focusing on the development and publication of real money and skill-based games
Long Term Ops
Behind the scenes: How to achieve a 30% revenue increase three years after launch
Azur Games' Milana Gelmanova takes a deep dive on the long term ops of Taxi Run
Deconstruction
Game Analysis: Deconstructing Jelly Run 2048 - Boosting rewarded ads and retention with a new meta
Azur Games producer, Milana Gelmanova breaks down Jelly Run 2048 and how one mechanic worked magic for the game's metrics
Making Of
Behind the scenes: The art and design that brings Railroad Empire to life
Azur Games' Anastasia Dovletova on how the team embraced historical records and blueprints to create photo-based realistic 3D art for their midcore hit
Optimising
How much analysis is too much? The fine art of balancing data and game development
Azur Games Maxim Kozhnov shares valuable insight on how analysts can optimise their workflow
Feature
Game analysis: The evolution of hypercasual runner Jelly Run 2048
Azur Games' Milana Gelmanova shares of taking the game from suboptimal metrics to a stand out project
Hot Five
Hot Five: Azur Games and Metacore acquisitions, hybridcasual hype, and Niantic’s new star
Our quick-fix roundup of the hottest stories on PocketGamer.biz
Acquisitions
Azur Games to acquire portfolio of US hypercasual game publisher Tastypill
The publisher’s portfolio boasts more than 1 billion downloads
Unity Runtime Fee
Developers issue collective ultimatum to Unity. "No more ironSource or Unity Ads until RunTime conditions are reviewed."
A brace of big names have banded together to shut off ads cash in protest against Unity's new pricing plans
Hypercasual Lessons
Choosing the right genres for small hypercasual game developers
Azur Games Sergey Martinkevich shares details on the trending hypercasual genres for small game developers
Market Analysis
Hypercasual predicitions: The state of play for the second half of 2023
Azur Games Sergey Martinkevich breaks down the current state of the hypercasual market and gives his predictions for the future
Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia’s AI business is through the roof and the peak is nowhere in sight
AI’s place in games development is only just being felt and, frankly, it’s hard to see where this train stops
Feature
Next-level game dev analytics: Using heatmaps in midcore games
Azur Games lead analyst Alexey Platonov shares how heatmaps can be used as a powerful analytical tool
Hypercasual Acquisition
AI Games FZ acquires Good Job Games’ hypercasual portfolio
Good Job Games has a successful track record in user acquisition
Feature
How to accelerate ASO with ChatGPT
Azur Games ASO manager Zlata Kazantseva shares how the team used ChatGPT to create keywords and texts in Survive Squad
Hypercasual
What's next for hypercasual marketing in 2023?
Google industry manager Anastasia Selchuk shares the state of hypercasual and outlines the marketing trends ahead
In-depth Analysis
Deconstructing Save the Doge one of the top draw to mesh puzzle games
Azur Games publishing lead, Sergey Martinkevich once again goes under the hood of a popular mobile title to see what makes it tick
In-depth Analysis
Under the hood: Deconstructing one of the top idle arcade games
Azur Games publishing lead, Sergey Martinkevich takes a deep dive into hypercasual games starting with Supersonic Studios My Mini Mart
Analytics
Levelling up analytics: From simple metrics to complex research
Azur Games CRO Maxim Kozhnov shares details on how to manage your metrics
Feature
Hypercasual macro overview in 2023 for developers
Google’s Analytical Consultant, Daria Yakovleva dives into the hypercasual market to share some key points of interest
Feature
The hyper-casual landscape in 2023: Trends and insights for developers
Azur Games publishing lead, Sergey Martinkevich shares insights on the development and monetization of hyper-casual games
Industry Insight
Building on success: How to focus your expertise to create guaranteed hits
We all learn from our mistakes, but do we equally learn from our wins? Azur Games' Milana Gelmanova explains how they only go from strength to strength
Trends In 2022
Azur Games summarises trends in gaming through 2022
Idle, puzzle, strategy and more outlined in genre-based trends
Personal Experiences
The Big Move: How Azur Games took their business out of Russia
Azur Games write about how their move from Russia came to pass, from Abandoned homes, week-long car trips, and plane tickets to random countries
Hypercasual On The Move
Azur Games: How hypercasual games development has changed through the pandemic
In Azur Games’ latest blog post they describe how the last three years of hypercasual has gone from popping bubbles to intricate level design
Guest Post
Ivan Karpinsky Greater China CBO at Azur Games on succeeding in the Chinese market
One of the world’s biggest mobile gaming markets poses unique challenges to developers
Development Details
Azur Games on how it created a top three simulator game
The blog post covers topics such as creating the right visuals and learning from metric analysis
Publisher News
Azur Games discuss salvaging ditched apps in latest blog post
We take a look at how one publisher claims to have grabbed games previously dropped by other publishers, and turned them into a success.
War In Ukraine
Azur Games sells Russian and Belarusian assets
The sale comes as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine
Sound Design
Azur Games breaks down the benefits of sound design
“Sound design in games should be practical first”
Hot Five
Hot Five: September 12th. The five stories you need to know before you start your working week
The biggest stories on PocketGamer.biz in the last week
Investments And Acquisitions
Azur Games acquires Mushroom Wars development studio
Former investors retain the brand name Zillion WHales
Hot Five
Hot Five: August 29th. The biggest stories from the last seven days, in a bite-sized digest
The HOTTEST stories on PocketGamer.biz in the last week
Guest Post
How level design saved a game with a 20% R1
Taxi Run developers Azur Games discuss the process they took to increase player retention and profits.
New Investment
Azur Games invests in French studio Pinpin Team
The company has acquired 30% of Pinpin Team
Fly Me To The Moon
Bringing a PC game to the mobile market: Azur Games' first experience
Azur Games and KishMish Games detail the conversion of FlyCorp from PC to mobile, ensuring its fundamental appeal could be delivered to the mobile player base, and key changes made for the F2P space
Buying On Binance
Axes Metaverse surpasses $4 million ahead of closed alpha version
14,000 chests sold during initial NFT sales
Where Is It
How to achieve a mobile bestseller: can five projects perform collectively as one superhit game?
Azur Interactive Games' Milana Gelmanova walks through five Hidden Object game releases to discuss the changes that led to the greatest player retention
World Domination
How hypercasual flop Clash of Dots became hit State.io
Azur reveals how to tweak for success
More Metaverse
Azur Games invests $2 million into blockchain-based NFT metaverse Axes 2.0
$10 million reserved for future NFT projects
Optimize This
How ASO influences metrics: a closer look
Azur Games gets into deep details
Diversification
Azur Games acquires minority stake in Neosus for $2.2 million
Setting sights on publishing future app development projects
New Relationships
Azur Games: building a strong relationship between a developer and its publisher
A chat with founder Artem Nikolayev on what the studio can do for you
Big Indie Pitch
Attractive Interactive's Paper Game is crowned the winner of the first ever digital Big Indie Pitch
We reveal the winners of the first ever digital Big Indie Pitch
Case Study
How Zorka.Mobi and Azur Games put together a pre-release influencer marketing campaign for Infinity Ops
Racking up 1.3 million pre-registrations by focusing on Latin America