"In one hour, I'm going to draw cards."
Xiao Ya has recently become obsessed with the mobile game "Original God". MihaYou can break through many game manufacturers, and "Original God" is indispensable.
According to the Sensor Tower platform, in February 2022, a total of 36 Chinese manufacturers were shortlisted for the global mobile game publisher revenue list TOP100. Among them, Tencent Games, NetEase Games and Mihayou continue to occupy 3 seats in the top 5 of the list.
After all, there are a few people like MihaYou who can kill a bloody road in the Red Sea of the game, and more manufacturers are either struggling to support or fall.
"The game industry doesn't make as much money as you think, with high turnover and low profits." An employee of a second-tier game company said that the game project group he was in before had a turnover of 1.1 billion yuan and a net profit of more than 20 million yuan. "Research and development, channels, and launches all cost money."
A number of industry insiders told "A Little Meta" that the game version number was suspended, some small and medium-sized game companies could not update iterative products, and their revenues fell sharply or even "cut off", which in turn led to limited financing, forced to compress new product research and development, and individual companies hoped to go to the sea to pan for gold.
Under the hustle and bustle, who can survive this winter?
01 giant lying earn
Some game manufacturers achieved good results last year. Kaiying Network expects net profit in 2021 to be 550 million to 650 million yuan, an increase of more than 20 times year-on-year; Youzu Network expects net profit of 180 million to 270 million yuan in the same period, an increase of about 20 times year-on-year.
There are also game manufacturers that have continuously launched an impact on the capital market. On March 21, Wangchen Technology, the developer of the sports game "Football Masters", submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It is reported that this is the company's second listing application after the expiration of the form on June 30, 2021.
In addition to the sporadic good news, it is undeniable that the current game market is entering a gear shift deceleration stage.
According to the data released by the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association, in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 17.826 billion yuan over the previous year, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year.
Under the influence of factors such as the decline in the economic effect of the home economy and the decline in the number of explosive models, this increase has shrunk by nearly 15% compared with the previous year.
While the growth rate has fallen, the pattern of the game industry has now been basically fixed. Gamma data shows that in terms of income caliber,
Tencent accounted for 56%, NetEase accounted for 19.6%, 37 Interactive Entertainment accounted for 5.2%, and the remaining 19.2% was divided by hundreds of game manufacturers.
As the "boss", Tencent's mobile game value-added service revenue increased by 12% year-on-year to 164.8 billion yuan in 2021, and the revenue of personal computer games increased by 2% year-on-year to 45.3 billion yuan. The two items together reached 210.1 billion yuan, accounting for more than 37% of the total revenue.
In fiscal years 2020 and 2021, NetEase's net income was 73.667 billion yuan and 87.606 billion yuan, respectively. Among them, online gaming services contribute more than 70% of net revenue.
37 Interactive Entertainment expects to achieve a net profit of between 2.8 billion yuan and 2.85 billion yuan in 2021, up 1.41% to 3.23% year-on-year.
In 2020, 37 Interactive Entertainment achieved revenue of 14.400 billion yuan, the total operating cost of the year reached 11.469 billion yuan, and the sales expense alone reached 8.213 billion yuan.
Version 02 is suspended
From July 22, 2021, the issuance of domestic game version numbers will be suspended, and the game industry will enter a new round of adjustment period.
It is understood that the approval of the application for the version number generally takes about half a year. Some big game manufacturers, such as Tencent NetEase, generally apply in batches in advance. For some start-ups that don't even have a full team, the scarcity of version numbers is even worse.
The person in charge of a head game company told "A Little Meta" that start-ups and small-scale game companies will be more affected than medium and large manufacturers.
Large and medium-sized manufacturers can still rely on online products to maintain cash flow and company operations in the short term, but small-scale game companies and start-ups have little or no income from online products, and their ability to obtain investment and financing from the primary market is relatively weak.
In the second half of 2021, NetEase has successively released several games such as "Eternal Destruction", "Absolute Interpretation", "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening" and so on.
NetEase Q4 financial report said that the Chinese style science fiction role-playing game "Ghost Chronicle" is in production. Ding Lei mentioned that it plans to launch Diablo in the first half of 2022, and the game has been approved for licensing.
"A lot of the plates are bought or stockpiled." A person who used to work in product operations at a game company told "A Little Meta" that in 2018 and 2019, the game environment was not good. "Version numbers have always been a big problem."
03 Loss, optimization
Some companies choose "driving without a license".
In January 2021, "Sand City Battle Song", operated by a network technology company in Nanjing, was published online without approval, and was sentenced to confiscation of illegal gains of 11,300 yuan and a fine of 69,400 yuan. Since March 2021, a network technology company in Xuzhou has not been approved to operate the online game "Sword Fairy Love". Later, it was dealt with by the local regulatory authorities in accordance with the law.
There are also companies that are losing money.
Perfect World in the layoffs storm is expected to achieve a net profit of 350 million yuan to 390 million yuan in 2021, down more than 70% year-on-year. Hero Interactive Entertainment recently announced the delisting of the new third board, and the net profit in the first half of last year was -26.844 million yuan, down 119.75% year-on-year.
Palm Fun Technology expects a loss of 1 billion to 1.4 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year change from profit to loss; Xinghui Entertainment expects a loss of 495 million yuan to 706 million yuan in 2021, a year-on-year change from profit to loss; Flying Fish Technology expects a loss of 69 million to 89 million yuan in 2021, and the loss margin is expanded compared with the previous year.
"A company has many groups developing multiple games in the same period, and one is explosive, basically a game to feed an entire company. Groups that do not produce an effect may be optimized. "According to the employees of a second-tier game company, the core of the game industry is a good product.
A good product or a blockbuster product has extremely high requirements for plot copywriting, game setting, and research and development. Behind this, the most basic factor is high-quality talent.
"It's not easy to recruit people." A recruiter for a small and medium-sized game company told A Little Meta that her company has transformed from the previous simple game distribution to publishing and self-development in parallel.
"It needs to be hired on a large scale, but it's hard to recruit. Excellent talents like to go to the head of the enterprise. Although the bar for those companies is very high, the attractiveness is not comparable to that of smaller companies. ”
04Where to go
Some insiders said that the large number of releases of the previous version number has made major manufacturers compete in the dimension of the number of game products, and in the long run, it is inevitable to ignore the quality, value, research and development level and technological innovation of the game.
"Now, game manufacturers need to pay more attention to product quality and value, so that products can develop in a more durable and healthy direction." A large number of shoddy games on the market will be quickly eliminated. ”
Joint R&D became a common choice. In April 2021, the "HNA King Blood Route" launched by China Mobile Games, which was jointly produced by the company and ByteDance's Chaoxi Lightyear Studio, won the Best Game of the Month Award recommended by the editors of the Apple Store.
In the post-epidemic era, users' outdoor time has greatly increased, and although the game industry is still growing, users have higher requirements for game quality.
Before the phenomenon-level product "Original God", "Ark of Tomorrow", developed by Shanghai Eagle Corner Network and publicly tested on May 1, 2019, is one of the representatives of the blockbuster.
Xiao Ya used to be a suit player of "Ark of Tomorrow" and was used to charging money, "As long as the character is set to poke me, no matter how strong or strong in the game, I will be kryptonite." Includes the usual first punch double, large and small monthly card for gaming activities. ”
The decline in favorability began last year. "The limited card pool is generally once a year (Spring Festival), and later added to the anniversary, twice a year. The official promise will not increase the number of limited launches in a short period of time, but last summer's activities, suddenly came a limit, but also very collapsed, all kinds of perfunctory, character proportions can not be seen. ”
What makes players unhappy is the plot of "Ark of Tomorrow". "Empty. The new plot has not been updated for a year, and the dynamic standing drawing has not come out. It's as if you don't plan to polish the game and just wait to harvest the last wave of leeks. ”
While the same players complained continuously, Xiao Ya downloaded "Original God". "A new version and a new map in 42 days, the quality is still high, the technology is strong, and it does not blindly please the players." Because halfway into the pit, Xiao Ya is like "make-up lessons" like Krypton gold, "as long as you open a new card pool, basically you have to (recharge) 648 (yuan), not counting the size of the monthly card." ”
Overseas has also become a new choice for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Recently, the person in charge of snail games told "A Little Meta" that "the use of themes in the domestic market has become saturated, compared with the acceptance of the same theme in overseas markets." "Compared with domestic games, the game payment model in overseas markets such as Europe and the United States and other countries has been very mature, which is conducive to maintaining stable cash flow of enterprises."
In the 2021 annual performance forecast, Palm Fun Technology said that in the future, it will focus on breakthroughs in SLG game products under development, vigorously expand overseas markets, and enhance overseas market share.
In the 2021 semi-annual report, CMG said that the overseas games that have been launched in 2020 have also achieved good results, with overseas revenue of 220 million yuan in the first half of the year, an increase of 62 times year-on-year.
Going to sea is not an easy task. The above-mentioned person in charge of Snail Games believes that the game goes to sea has higher requirements for the quality of the game, and if you want to succeed in this track, you need continuous polishing and innovation.
"For any manufacturer, the game is only a survival skill, which does not mean that going to sea is the right choice for each manufacturer," said the person in charge of a small and medium-sized game company, saying that the most important thing to go to sea is to do a good job in product localization operations, which requires more manpower and energy, and bears the results of promotion failure.