The “Cash or Crash” Frenzy
One of every 15 online casino players in India, or 6.53% of all active players during the first 10 months of 2022, have played one of the Top 5 most popular cash or crash games.
For those who failed to be impressed, the authors of the study that surfaced these numbers from SevenJackpots point out that this was done by a new gaming genre that came out of the blue just a few months ago and had to compete with more than 5,500 other games.
Well, cash or crash games didn’t literally come out of the blue a few months ago, as they originated in the world of crypto and have been with us for more than three years after they were created back in 2019.
Nevertheless, it was in the late summer of 2022 when crash games surged in popularity in “regular” online casinos, bringing the provably fair technology for random number generation out of the realm of crypto gaming platforms and into “the mainstream” for good.
And what a surge it was: business intelligence data reveals that the share of unique users who played the games of one particular small studio jumped by almost 200% between July and August from 0.95% to 2.79%.
Spribe Comes Forth
The name of this game developer is Spribe and it’s “Turbo Games” category led by Aviator, Mines, Goal, and Plinko – a mini game inspired by the popular American TV game show from the 1970’s “The Price is Right”, started performing really well in the second half of the year.
Games by Spribe raised their share of generated turnovers by 44.2% and active users by 66.68% for the three months between August and October 2022 compared to the whole January-to-October period, showing the massive impact of the late summer surge in popularity of crash games on overall results.
Mangools’ KWFinder tool reveals a tenfold increase in monthly search volumes from India related to the Aviator game between February and September, with online traction remaining at the high level in the following months.
Google Trends confirms the high interest in the game in India for the whole 2022, especially after August, with particularly high activity coming from the state of Gujarat, followed by Telangana, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.
Evolution’s Cash or Crash Led the Breakthrough
Aviator by Spribe is undoubtedly the market star of this new gaming genre, but the first breakthrough of “cash or crash” games was achieved by the game of the same title by Evolution – a crossover between casino game shows and simple crash game mechanics with a live dealer.
Released somewhat late – in September 2001, Cash or Crash immediately became a hit title, generating the second highest turnover of 6.55% and the third highest player count of 1.40% in the “Other” games category outside the likes of roulette, blackjack or slots.
Spaceman by Pragmatic Play, launched in March 2022, is also ranking among the five most popular crash games. Other notable examples include JetX and FootballX from SmartSoft Gaming’s family of XGames.
From Immersive to Light and Simple
For the last decade online casinos have been developing in the direction of more immersive gaming experiences, continuously building up live features, VR/AR elements, and interactive options while going heavy on the visual design side.
The abrupt surge in traction of crash-style games with their simple design and gameplay, and extremely light mobile data and device resource usage runs contrary to the general trend.
Despite their simplicity, in-built features like chats, live statistics and leaderboards make crash games socially engaging and attractive for gamer communities.
The provably fair random number generator algorithms where users can easily verify bet results bring a new level of trustworthiness and integrity to online casino gaming. All these factors have contributed to the rapid success of this novel online gaming genre.
