Homa's All in Hole: A Case Study in Hybrid Casual Game Development

Challenge

With more than 2 billion downloads and 150 million monthly active users, Homa Games, a French mobile game publisher, has established itself as one of the preeminent players in the mobile gaming market since 2018.

Homa recognized a growing demand for the still nascent, but emerging, hybrid casual genre, comprised of games that blended the accessibility of hypercasual with the deeper gameplay of mid-core titles. But to bring their newest idea to market, Homa needed a solution that would help them analyze market trends, further identify room for opportunity and innovation, and successfully launch their new game, All in Hole.

Solution

Development and Soft Launch: Iterative Improvement Through Data

Homa worked closely with Sensor Tower to:

1. Select strategic soft-launch markets. Homa utilized SensorTower's data to select strategic soft launch markets based on global target audience data, and to track campaign performance, optimizing acquisition costs. This data-driven approach allowed Homa to respond to user feedback during the soft launch period, iteratively improving game balance, tutorial flow, and the in-game economy based on player behavior and purchase patterns.

2. Optimization Advertising Spend and Strategy. SensorTower's advertising intelligence revealed that video ads featuring gameplay and social interactions yielded the highest conversion rates.

3. Benchmark All in Hole performance against competitors. Sensor Tower data allowed Homa Games to benchmark All in Hole’s performance against other successful hybrid casual games in real time. Timely and actionable data from Sensor Tower allowed them to identify emerging trends, make informed decisions regarding feature prioritization, A/B test key parts of their monetization strategy, optimize revenue generation, and measure retention rates relative to competitors during the soft launch period.

Go-to-Market: Advertising and Global Launch

Leveraging learnings from the soft launch in addition to Sensor Tower’s data on market size, player spending habits, and genre preferences, Homa executed a successful phased global rollout. During the launch period, Homa utilized Sensor Tower’s data on digital and in-app advertising to:

1. Focus ad budget on high-performing channels, using advertising intelligence from top mobile ad networks and digital channels like YouTube and TikTok to identify the optimal channel mix.

2. A/B test creatives that were informed by competitor ad performance, and maximized click-through and conversion rates.

3. Monitor return on ad spend (ROAS) and ensure campaign profitability.

Result

Armed with Sensor Tower data, Homa Games was able to successfully:

1. Identify top markets for a successful soft launch, allowing for real-time improvements that resulted in increased excitement, with retention rates far exceeding industry averages and and a player satisfaction rating of 4.9/5 stars on app stores.

2. Tailor its advertising strategy and grow its userbase - All in Hole saw over 5 million downloads the first month and remains a top 40 free game (US) in the iOS App Store

3. Achieve continued growth through carefully optimized monetization strategies, achieving an ARPDAU of $0.40.

‘All In Hole’ is not only a testament to Homa’s visionary approach to game development and unique contributions to the hybrid casual genre, but a blueprint for how publishers and developers can utilize Sensor Tower’s competitive mobile and digital advertising data to market, customize, monitor, and drive player acquisition and revenue.