FreePlay surpasses 2bn lifetime installs after expanding into hybridcasual

Floridian mobile games studio FreePlay’s portfolio has officially surpassed two billion installs globally.

The games maker and publisher has achieved the milestone across a catalogue of dozens of titles in over 175 countries. Those titles are primarily focused on hypercasual and hybridcasual genres, and reach 80 million monthly active users.

FreePlay highlighted Count Masters, Twerk Race 3D and Zombie Apocalypse among its major hits on the global stage, which AppMagic estimates suggest have generated a combined 542.1m installs between Google Play and the App Store.

The latest milestone has followed approximately 15 months after FreePlay reached 1.5bn portfolio-wide downloads.

Evolving with the times

Since its founding in 2020, FreePlay has adapted to the evolving mobile industry and expanded from hypercasual into hybridcasual.  The company has also broadened its monetisation model from ads to in-app purchases, encouraging player spending in games like Zombie Apocalypse.

FreePlay stated that an evolving strategy has enabled it to "diversify revenue streams while enhancing player engagement".

Notably, while estimates rank Zombie Apocalypse as FreePlay’s ninth most-downloaded game, the game is number one for player spending at $4.3m. Meanwhile, download-winners Count Masters and Twerk Race 3D have yet to hit $1m in player spending, though they likely generate more revenue from in-game ads.

"Since our previous milestone, we've significantly strengthened our portfolio with new hybridcasual games. And what's more important, we've notably increased our average RPD  (revenue per download) through hybrid monetisation strategies, leading to even more opportunities," said FreePlay CEO Evgeniy Sidorov.

"This marks the next step in the company's strategy: making quality games with longer life cycles and stronger monetisation."