The Mini-Game Marketing Playbook 🎲
Hook your users with hyper casual games (including 26 proven game models you can steal)
In 2016, Toggl (a time-tracking software company) tried something new:
🕹️ They launched “Startup Simulator” - a simple web game where players build a startup while avoiding employee churn and bankruptcy. The game perfectly captured the pains and struggles of Toggl’s target audience: startup founders & entrepreneurs.
The result → Massive engagement from their core users! 📊
Welcome to the world of “Mini-Games Marketing”.
🔥 The “Mini-Games Marketing” Trend:
Fast forward to today, and it seems like everyone is jumping on the mini-game bandwagon:
LinkedIn has launched a series of puzzle games that provide a short mental break at work. (See the above screenshot)
YouTube introduced ‘Playables’ - interactive ads that let users play a mini-game before watching a video.
Even Netflix got into gaming - with mini-games based on their popular shows.
The New York Times is mostly a gaming company now - people spend more time on their games compared to their news! 🤯
We couldn’t resist either:
At Wiz, we launched “Wizlympics” - just in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics. In our cloud security mini-game, players become the cute little Wiz Sensor, collecting real cloud services like AWS S3 and EC2 while avoiding fake ones.
It’s not only fun but also educational! 🤓
But my favorite mini-game story happened recently:
🎯 Incident.io built a game to get Anthropic’s attention
Stephen Whitworth (CEO of incident.io) had a problem: his company works with most top AI companies, but not Anthropic. Traditional outreach wasn’t cutting it.
His solution was brilliant: Build “PagerTron” - a retro arcade game where you squash bugs by firing Claude logos. The twist: it was specifically designed to get Anthropic’s attention.
The game lives on a custom landing page (incident.io/anthropic) with this message: “We vibe-coded something fun to get their attention. Hit a high score and you might even get some swag.”
The lesson: Mini-games aren’t just for general marketing. They’re incredibly powerful for targeted B2B outreach when you want to stand out from the “quick call?” crowd.
💖 Why Mini-Games Work:
So why are mini-games suddenly the biggest marketing trend?
🕰️ Crazy engagement: Games keep users on your site or app longer than any other content. Period. That’s wild for SEO.
🧩 Brand love: Themed games (like our cloud security trivia) beautifully prove your expertise and make your audience feel ‘seen’ and understood.
🔄 Viral potential: Great games spread organically. Players share high scores, challenge friends, and talk about them on social.
😍 Memorable marketing: It’s different! Games stand out in a sea of white papers, e-books and webinars.
💬 FOMO retention: Drop new challenges daily (like Wordle and LinkedIn), and people will get hooked. It’s also a great conversation starter. Miss a day, miss out!
🟢 ‘Mini-Games Marketing’: A Tactical Guide
Now, you might be thinking - “How do I create a mini-game for my company?”
Don’t worry, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The trick is