How developers can build games for the long haul and why not every project is cut out for it

• Sergey Martinkevich highlights how older games dominate charts and set the bar for success.
• He warns rebuilding previous hits rarely outperforms the original in today’s market.
• Martinkevich advises planning monetisation and progression systems early, even in hypercasual titles.

Sergey Martinkevich is the publishing lead at Azur Games.

Not every game or team was ready for just how much the mobile market would change in the last couple of years. Today, it’s harder than ever to launch a hit. The reality is, even if you rebuild a previously successful game from the ground up and improve every metric, there’s a 99% chance it will perform worse.

The top of the charts is dominated by older titles that have long since optimised for long-term ROAS and are backed by massive historical data sets.

It’s nearly impossible to carve out a new niche unless you’re offering something deeply polished, with meaningful gameplay and well-thought-out monetisation.

This shift has affected publishers, too. Many are moving away from high-risk launches and instead doubling down on established games with existing audiences and steady revenue.

Fewer and fewer are willing to invest months into polishing something new with no guaranteed payoff.

So, how do you approach development when new launches are riskier than ever, and when older games weren’t built with longevity in mind?

The future of old games in a changed market

A lot of profitable older mobile titles today were built during the early hype cycle, when everyone was racing to publish and grab market share, or even predate that era. Most of these games were never designed for long-term growth - they weren’t designed for continuous updates or feature expansion.

But in today’s market, that’s exactly what a game needs to survive, but if this wasn't built into the game's architecture, difficulties arise. Take Western Sniper, for example. It’s still bringing in a stable, albeit modest, profit after all these years. We had a simple idea for a new, visually striking feature, but it turned out to be very difficult to implement technically.

We introduced a "curved bullet" mode that would let players steer the bullet mid-flight and then watch a cinematic killcam-style animation as enemies dropped. The bullet mechanic itself wasn’t too hard to implement. But the animation system? Technically impossible to pull off in the existing architecture.

What should’ve been a quick prototype became a hard blocker. And at that point, rebuilding the project would cost about as much as starting from scratch. Not a great tradeoff, considering the likely return.

A few years ago, a feature like that might’ve boosted metrics by 10–30%, if not more. Today, we’re looking at systematic 2–3% improvements - and that’s what long-term success is built on. Meanwhile, new titles face even steeper odds.

That’s why we still keep working on mature hypercasual games, even ones built around a rigid, single mechanic. Because if you know how to look for growth points, test hypotheses, and validate ideas, that’s a real edge. A lot of studios haven’t developed that kind of skillset.

You’ll see some big companies walk away from games with okay metrics or low retention simply because they don’t know how to work with them. That’s where growth is hiding.

You can’t just release a game and forget about it if you want to hit real long-term success. If it starts performing, the real work is just beginning. Without steady iteration and support, even a chart-topper will fade. At some point, your best traffic sources will burn out, and unless you’ve planned for scale, you’ll be stuck. And even then, you need to accept that your best update might only boost LTV by a few percent.

That’s the marathon. And if you’re ready for it, you’ll outlast competitors who aren’t.

When it comes to monetisation, the old model doesn’t work the way it used to, even in hypercasual. You either need to plan for hybrid monetisation from the start, or introduce it gradually, and that requires depth.

Many games still rely entirely on interstitials, rewarded ads, and skins sold for coins. But that model doesn’t bring in the same profit anymore. And slapping on some IAPs won’t fix it, shifting to hybrid requires rethinking the entire project.

Even the strongest core loop won’t cut it if there’s nothing wrapped around it. Players aren’t willing to just repeat the same "play–watch ad–play" loop anymore. It used to work - sometimes the interstitial ad was longer than the actual hypercasual game level. But if you want to shift your monetisation model today, you have to make up for every place the old model was driving revenue.

Take Merge Archers. At one point, we removed the requirement to watch an ad to expand the merge zone (from 2x3 to 3x3), thinking it might make sessions feel smoother and longer without ad breaks. In reality? Revenue dropped, and core metrics didn’t budge. The core loop just isn’t enough anymore.

Or Mow My Lawn, a great-looking game where players mow satisfying lawn shapes. We tried removing ads entirely from levels 2–7 to hook players early and boost retention. Result? No change. The bare hypercasual core wasn’t enough to keep them.

We’ve started adding more layered gameplay to help. In Western Sniper, we bolted on an Archero-style mode: the player runs forward while enemies charge them, and the system auto-shoots the closest one. It’s a totally different genre inside the same game. It added depth and boosted retention, but only because we were able to make it work within the existing setup.

If your game only has coins and skins, you can’t just add a battle pass and expect results. You need to rethink the loop - add variety, progression, and rewards purposely designed to accompany existing and upcoming mechanics. Then a pass might make sense.

Why not just build something new?

So why go through all the trouble of retrofitting old projects - bolting on new genres, meta layers, new reward systems - when you could just build something fresh, using everything you’ve learned?

In theory, that’s the smarter bet. But in practice? It’s much easier to keep an audience than to find a new one.

Older games already have traction in the store, and they’ve built momentum in algorithmic rankings. And it might not help if you try to make “the same game, but better”. We rebuilt one of our hypercasual titles from scratch, better than its predecessor in every regard. It underperformed by 20% in LTV compared to the original.

The original had legacy power. The new version didn’t. And nowadays, we’re seeing devs forced to cram hybrid or even casual features into the bodies of old hypercasual games.

That doesn’t mean new development is dead, but the bar is just much higher. Architecture, depth, visuals, content, monetisation - it all has to be there. For a small team, that kind of polish is borderline unachievable. Everything has to be optimised: placements, effects, gameplay. And to afford that level of experimentation, you need long-term projects paying the bills.

What to keep in mind for new projects

If you’re building something new, think economy-first. Got weapons? Plan how to upgrade them: through cards or hard currency?

Here’s the bare minimum to plan ahead:

• A character progression system with active/passive abilities

• A card-based upgrade structure (common, rare, epic, legendary)

• Multiple currencies

• Competitive layers like tournaments, async PvP, or guild battles and events

• A flexible, content-rich battle pass

Even if you build these systems from the start, you likely won’t see explosive growth like before. But that’s fine. If you invest months into a new feature and it bumps LTV by 5%? That’s a win.

Back in the day, you could launch with nothing but a tight core. Hitmaster, for example, shipped with just 18 levels. Players didn’t care, they played it over and over because it was fun.

But that’s not enough now. Today, core and meta have to work together: finish a level, earn rewards, level up your gear, build a base, and customise your look. Don’t add the base purely for the vibes, though - it can become a good foundation for new gameplay loops like expeditions or a tycoon. That’s what gets players coming back.

Final thoughts

Everyone’s been saying hypercasual is dead and hybrids are the future. But when we build new games, we don’t ask “is this hypercasual or hybrid?” We ask: “Is this fun? Is it profitable?” That means baking in monetisation and economy early and leaving room to experiment. And we think other teams should do the same.

But how do you launch a hit when the top charts are packed with legacy titles, and you need serious resources to even compete? You try.

Take the Tap Away mechanic: Popcore’s 2021 release sparked numerous hypercasual imitators and effectively created its own subgenre. In 2025, we leveraged the same core idea to launch Tap Gallery, a casual reinterpretation that became one of our strongest performers in both ad spend and ad revenue.

Park Merge is a similar example. Everyone thought the parking genre had been done to death. Line up cars. What else is there? Then along comes a game where you not only park cars, but you have to match them with three passengers of the right colour. It blew up. A twist on the core. A fresh layer.

So just keep testing the new. Keep revisiting the old. Try fresh stuff. And always plan ahead for depth.