Last week a client asked: "Can hyper-casual still work?"

My answer

"Anything is possible, but, I'd recommend against it."

Best evidence

The pubs best at hyper-casual have pivoted to hybrid.

Client: "Well, how did Block Blast do it?"

Great question.

So I did a bit of digging...

Here is how Block Blast scaled from 15M to 42M monthly downloads over the past several months.

A 60-cent Ad LTV (given insane retention) would put them at a $300M / year run rate on ads alone.

So, how did they do this, in 2025?

  1. 3000 A/B Tests: They iterated aggressively since 2022, ran 3000 A/B tests, some with AI players.
  2. D60 Retention of 28%: The fruit of this iteration.
  3. 10,000 different ad creative concepts in past 2y.

So... that's ALL it takes to have a hit!

A D60 retention higher than most games' D7, 3000 A/B tests, a bit of luck, and a battalion of AI + human ad creators.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Revenue data from AppMagic. Retention estimates from SensorTower Note: For Q1 2025, Sensortower's estimated WW D60R est. fell to 19%. Still nuts!