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PGC Helsinki Digital: Kwalee accumulates 425 million lifetime downloads

Milestone was confirmed by Kwalee publishing manager Allan Adham

PGC Helsinki Digital: Kwalee accumulates 425 million lifetime downloads

Hypercasual publisher Kwalee has accumulated more than 425 million global downloads.

The milestone was confirmed by Kwalee publishing manager Allan Adham during his talk at PGC Helsinki Digital on 'The Fundamentals of Hypercasual: Insider Publisher Knowledge'.

Kwalee's success in the hypercasual market was attributed to numerous titles, with Rocket Sky, Jetpack Jump and OverTake particularly highlighted as major hits. More recently, Line Up: Draw the Criminal reached 1.5 million downloads in its first four days of launch, while Bake It from the studio generated 10 million downloads within its first month.

Founded in 2011, the studio is now the UK's biggest hypercasual publisher with headquarters in Leamington Spa as well as further teams in Bangalore, Beijing and Turkey. The company now employs almost 100 staff members, with publishing managers playing "countless games from devs of all sizes".

"Find the fun"

"We have a good understanding of what works versus what doesn't, so first impressions are actually crucial," said Adham.

"You want to avoid spending too much time on a prototype because the market shifts so quickly, trends change so quickly [and] you want to avoid spending too much time on a prototype because you might effectively miss the boat," he added.

"The idea is to spend a bit of time to create the prototype and work towards something you can test with CPI."

Kwalee opened its new China office at the start of September as the studio continues its expansion and looks to grow the brand across the region.

Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from September 14th to the 18th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place throughout the week here.

Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.