The Casual market may look flat, but that’s only half of the story.
Across its biggest pillars, Puzzle, Casino, and Simulation, publishers are adapting, new genres are emerging, and player preferences continue to evolve.
AppMagic‘s latest Casual Games report highlights several major shifts happening across the biggest categories.
Puzzle: Match-3
This is still the largest Puzzle subgenre, but also one of the hardest markets to break into. Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga, and Royal Kingdom continue to dominate, while newcomers like Match Villains show that breaking into the market is still possible. Success now depends on exceptional LiveOps, deep monetization, years of iteration, and massive budgets.
Puzzle: Merge-2
This is the fastest growing genre in Casual, reaching $1.3B in H1 with 74% YoY growth. Gossip Harbor, Tasty Travels and Travel Town lead the charts, while their publishers, Microfun, Century Games, and Moon Active, are no longer betting on a single success. Instead, they’re expanding entire Merge portfolios, making the genre increasingly competitive.
Puzzle: Hybrid Casual
These games are one of the biggest trends in mobile gaming right now. By combining hypercasual accessibility with casual-style progression, LiveOps, and hybrid IAA/IAP monetization, subgenres like Sort, Screw and Block puzzles continue to attract both players and publishers. While Rollic and Voodoo have been major players in the space, more and more casual giants are now entering it.
Casino: Coin Looters
While overall Casino revenue has softened, publishers are finding new growth through D2C monetization, stronger LiveOps, and franchise expansion. Monopoly Go, Coin Master, and Dice Dreams remain the dominant players, while Moon Active continue to expand the Coin Master IP into new gameplay experiences.
Simulation
Here, the Farming subgenre remains the backbone of the category, with veteran titles like Hay Day continuing to set new revenue records through disciplined LiveOps, while My Garden Tale highlights the growing importance of the Chinese market. Meanwhile, the Life Sim game Heartopia has emerged as one of the year’s biggest simulation success stories, proving there’s still room for breakout hits.
