Weekly Gaming Reports Recap: April 28 - May 2 (2025)

AppMagic - about hybridcasual & top April games, and playtime insights from MIDiA Research.

Reports of the week:

1. AppMagic: Top 10 Hybridcasual Games in Q1’25

2. MIDiA Research: A third of PC and Console Gamers play less than 5 hours a week

3. AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in April 2025

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AppMagic: Top 10 Hybridcasual Games in Q1’25

Previously, the company focused on quarterly reports for the hypercasual market. Now, it will also cover hybrid-casual projects, reflecting changes in the market.

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Top 10 Hybrid-Casual Games in Q1’25

• The top 10 highest-grossing hybrid-casual games in Q1'25 saw a 67% YoY revenue increase, earning $87 million from IAP.

• Puzzle games account for the largest share of this revenue (48% of the total). Arcade games make up 45%.

• Breaking it down further, the top 10 include: 2 Block Puzzle games (Color Block Jam, Bus Escape); 2 Screw Puzzle games (Screw Jam, Screwdom); 1 Sort Puzzle (Block Jam 3D), 4 arcade projects (All in Hole, Pocket Champs, Mob Control, and Alien Invasion), and 1 strategy game (Tower War).

• A few years ago, arcade projects held 77% of all top 10 revenue. A year ago, it was 52%. So, the category is losing its share.

• Block Puzzle accounts for 71% of all hybrid-casual puzzle revenue in the top 10. Screw Puzzle has 20%. Although Sort Puzzle is the smallest niche by revenue (at least in the top 10), it shows the highest growth rate (5.6x YoY).

Performance of Some Top 10 Projects

• Color Block Jam by Rollic earned $25 million in Q1'25. In Q4'24, the project’s revenue was $175 thousand.

• AppMagic analysts note that the developers manage the difficulty curve well, encouraging players to buy boosters. Also, monetization ramps up over time- early levels have almost no ads. Currently, the game lacks comprehensive LiveOps, and its significant growth is attributed to smart UA.

• All in Hole by Homa also showed significant growth in Q1'25 - the game earned $17.7 million, three times more than in Q4'24.

• The developers diversified the classic Hole.io gameplay with progression, varied level design, and clear goal-setting. The game features numerous LiveOps elements. Monetization is focused on IAP. Currently, the project generates 84% of all revenue in its subgenre.

• Another interesting example is Mob Control by Voodoo. The game launched in 2021 but hit its IAP revenue record in March 2025.

• In Q1'25, the game earned $7.9 million in IAP revenue (+27% YoY) and was downloaded 21 million times (+37% YoY).

• AppMagic notes that the game actively sells ad skip options. Additionally, skipping Rewarded Ads is monetized via a “Skip’it” subscription, allowing players to claim rewards without watching ads.

• The last example is Screwdom, which generated $3.6 million in IAP revenue in Q1'25. In April 2025 alone, the game already earned more than in the entire previous quarter-so it’s on an upward trend.

• iKame Games studio has released 9 games in the Screw Puzzle subgenre. The first truly successful game (Screw Out) launched in April 2024, earning $14 million and nearly 20 million downloads.

• With Screwdom, the developers transitioned their experience from 2D to 3D-an innovation for the genre.

• Challenging missions in the project take 5 to 15 minutes to complete. As a result, many players prefer to buy extra attempts instead of starting over-this is the core of the monetization model.

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MIDiA Research: A third of PC and Console Gamers play less than 5 hours a week

• The company conducted a study in Q4’24, which found that, on average, console gamers spend 10 hours a week playing games, while PC gamers spend 9.7 hours a week.

• But average figures don’t always tell the whole story. Two-thirds of PC and console users spend less than 10 hours a week on gaming.

• 36% of console gamers and 40% of PC gamers play less than 5 hours weekly.

• Many players simply don’t have time for big games as large RPGs or GAAS projects. Specifically, MIDiA Research analysts link the stagnation of subscription services to this lack of time. People buy a subscription and barely play any of the games included.

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AppMagic: Top Mobile Games by Revenue and Downloads in April 2025

AppMagic provides revenue data net of store commissions and taxes. Revenue from Android stores in China is not included.

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Revenue

• Honor of Kings returned to the top by revenue, earning $181.5M. 99% of this amount came from iOS.

• Second place went to Last War: Survival ($152.5 million), third place to Whiteout Survival ($136.9 million).

• Honkai: Star Rail showed significant revenue growth, earning $71.7 million in April. This is a record since April 2024, when the game celebrated its first anniversary.

• Gossip Harbor: Merge & Story entered the top 15 - the game has been steadily growing in revenue since its launch in June 2022. In April, the project earned $39.9 million, a record figure.

Downloads

• There were not many changes in the download charts in April. The top spots are still held by the same projects - Block Blast! (39.5 million installs), Roblox (19.6 million), Subway Surfers (13.97 million).

• Cookingdom saw significant growth - the game jumped to 8th place in the charts, with a little over 10 million downloads in April. This is a cozy game where you cook for capybaras. The developers are ABI Games Studio, known for Prison Break: Stick Story and Wood Nuts & Bolts Puzzle.

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