The news was broken by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier on Twitter ahead of an official announcement, but no figure has been placed on the deal just yet.

“At Tonic Games Group we often say that: ‘everyone deserves a game that feels like it was made for them,’,” Tonic Games Group co-founder and CEO Dave Bailey (pictured) said.

“With Epic, we feel like we have found a home that was made for us. They share our mission to build and support games that have a positive impact, empower others and stand the test of time and we couldn’t be more excited to be joining forces with their team.”

Fellow co-founder and chief games officer Paul Croft added: “Beyond the shared vision among our teams, we see tremendous potential in combining forces with Epic. Whether it’s about making our own games the best they can be or empowering other game developers to take their content from a kernel of an idea to commercial success, we know that together we will be able to reach greater heights.”

Meanwhile, Epic boss Tim Sweeney said that the acquisition was part of the Fortnite firm’s mission to “build the metaverse,” which is something Tonic Games Group is also into.

“As Epic works to build this virtual future, we need great creative talent who know how to build powerful games, content and experiences,” he said.

This comes in the wake of Tonic Games Group being formed by Mediatonic in June of last year as its new parent company. Fall Guys has sold more than 10 million copies on Steam alone, according to… engine maker Unity, which is the platform on which the game was made.

Back in 2019, Epic bought Rocket League maker Psyonix.

Source: https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/71987/epic-buys-fall-guys-maker-tonic-games-group/

Hyper-casual games boomed in 2020. With so many of us confined to our homes, the mobile gaming industry saw a peak worldwide – especially in the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian markets. 

During the lockdowns, active users went up 200%. The average length of gaming sessions went up 20%. And hyper-casual games alone generated 1bn monthly downloads.  

Can these numbers remain so high? Could they go even higher? Here’s what we’re expecting to see in the market in 2021.

IDFA changes will affect hyper-casual the least

While IDFA still remains a question mark, the iOS changes seem unlikely to affect hyper-casual games directly. This is because the hyper-casual genre has a broader audience than other categories and targets users differently.

Meanwhile, ad money could prove to be an issue due to other genres like mid-core games getting hit with the IDFA changes. This could be dealt with through creatives – by presenting gameplay in a specific way that proves appealing to different audiences.

The iOS IDFA changes could open up an opportunity for Android to become the new battlefield as more publishers move over to the platform. Hyper-casual publishers will probably also shift focus to Android alongside other genres.

Android though is still pretty likely to implement a similar system once Apple goes forward with its changes.

We’ll see small trends in hyper-casual gaming, rather than big ones

In 2021, we expect small trends will continue to rise and fall. Not everything this year will be hybrid-casual and developers will have to be much faster to ride those trend waves. 

We might see casual, mid-core and other genres (games with heavier concepts, more complex mechanics, and other features) adopting hyper-casual themes and gameplay. 

We also expect to see more metric-driven trends. Developers and publishers with the right tools will stay on top of the changing trends and jump fairly quickly to act on their insights. 

The Asian market should continue to grow

While you might not see many hyper-casual titles in the charts, they’re on the rise. This growth should continue in the coming years and competition will become more fierce.

A lot more developers in Asia are picking up on hyper-casual games. They’re also discovering specific styles that are more suited to their audiences than western-developed ones. This will accelerate the genre’s growth across the region. 

ISBN for ad monetization is rumored to be making its way to Asia. This would be a huge blow for the Chinese market.

Developers and publishers will collaborate more closely

In recent years, we’ve seen publishers seeking out longer relationships with developers – rather than having a one-off deal with them. There’s nothing to suggest this trend won’t continue.

Expect publishers to focus more than ever on the ‘superstar’ developers – highly sought-after teams with major success stories under their belt. This might make it harder for newcomers to find a publishing partner.

We also expect to see more internal development and studio acquisitions.

Hyper-casual isn’t going away any time soon

The hyper-casual genre is built in such a way that it can easily adapt to changes and evolve – it has broad appeal, it’s data-driven, and has a lightning-fast development cycle. In 2021, there’s no reason to think the rise of hyper-casual games will be slowing down.

Source: https://gameanalytics.com/blog/hyper-casual-2021-eastern-western-markets/