Chinese Keep It Casual

When it comes to mobile gaming, Chinese players are most likely to opt for casual games, while U.S. smartphone or tablet gamers were most likely to pick action or strategy mobile games. This is according to the Mobile Games Index 2021 published by Adjoe in cooperation with Statista.

The term casual gaming might not be familiar to everybody, but the genre certainly is. Casual games are those which can be played for short periods of times and can be quickly learned because of their simple rules. The most-played titles in the genre in 2021 included Ludo games or Paint by Number, but well-known mobile classics like Candy Crush and Angry Birds are also casual games.

Chinese mobile gamers seemed to shun strategy games (for example mobile versions of Civilization or Clash of Clans) as well as sports games, while role-playing games (for example mobile-friendly Final Fantasy or the Dragonball-inspired Dragon Quest) occupied a sizable niche audience in both countries.

If mobile players want to engage in even more low-brainer gaming, they can also choose hyper-casual games, which are even simpler and quicker to learn that regular casual games. In 2021, one popular option was Bottle Flip 3D, a game where players need to flip a water bottle across a parkour of household items.