Wen 丨 Zhang Nan
Source 丨Tou China Network
The two-dimensional game has also rolled up, and high-quality content has increasingly become the object of contention of all parties, a hand-made two-dimensional game that focuses on "two-dimensional placement of cards", which has attracted investment from many companies such as B Station, NetEase and Sequoia China after the fire.
According to the information of Tianyancha, Hangzhou Xinguang Liumei Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinguang Liumei") has undergone industrial and commercial changes recently, adding new shareholders such as Shanghai Xiandian Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Bilibili) and Sequoia Muchen (Xiamen) Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), while the registered capital of Xinguang Liumei has increased by 1/4 to 306.125 million yuan.
Founded in 2016, Xinguang Liumei is a game research and development and operation company, the types of games produced include mobile games, stand-alone games and casual games, products include "Warring States Chronicles", "High-skilled Hand Group", "Rampage Rabbit", "Dark Hunter", "Fingertip Tank", "Beast Battle", the most capable of playing, of which is the hand-made two-dimensional game "High-ability Hand Group", according to media reports in 2020, three weeks after its launch in 2020, the flow of water broke 100 million yuan, and Station B represented its release in South Korea in September this year. It is reported that the results are quite good.
As early as October 28, Kaiying Network, an A-share listed company, announced that it transferred 25% of the equity of Xinguang Liumei to 4 companies for 54 million yuan, and the transferees included Hangzhou Broadcasting Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai Youzhuo Entrepreneurship Incubator Management Partnership (Limited Partnership) (both of which are NetEase affiliates), B Station and Sequoia Capital, while the four companies increased the capital of Xinguang Liumei by a total of 612,250 yuan, accounting for 20% of the shares.
At present, Sequoia China and Station B hold 10% and 5% of the company's shares respectively, and according to the announcement, the valuation of Xinguang Liumei is 285 million yuan, the investment amount of Station B is 14.5 million yuan, and the amount of Sequoia is 29 million yuan. That is to say, at a price of more than 10 million yuan, station B may buy out the overseas publishing rights of a high-quality two-dimensional game developer, and this business should be worth it at present.
Three weeks of flowing water broke through 100 million, but high and low
Founded in 2016, founder and CEO Chen Yu, graduated from Zhejiang University with a master's degree in engineering, has ten years of experience in cultural industry operation, and rich experience in the operation of game distribution platforms, and is familiar with two-dimensional culture. At present, there are two major game studios under the heart light flow beauty, Reflective Arc and Cat Trick, and "High-Skilled Hand Group" is the work from the Reflection Arc Studio.
"High-skilled hand group" is a main online "blind box" and "hand-made" game, the female characters in it are very in line with the aesthetic characteristics of the two-dimensional enthusiasts of "pure and desire", the body is hot, the dress is cool, but has a pure and cute face, it is said to be "the first domestic cool hand-made theme mobile game".
Therefore, before the 2020 public beta, the number of reservations exceeded 3 million, in contrast, the number of reservations made by Miha's explosive game "Original God" before last year's public beta was about 10 million, and the number of reservations for the same two-dimensional tower defense game "Ark of Tomorrow" before the 2019 public beta was about 4.3 million. It can be said that even if it does not reach the popularity of the above two games, "High-skilled Hand Group" still relies on tricky positioning and gathers a group of players.
Three weeks after the public beta was launched, the flow of "High-skilled Hand Group" broke the mark of 100 million yuan, referring to the financial data of the Heartlight Flowing Beauty, in 2020, the operating income was more than 17 million yuan, the loss was more than 17 million yuan, and only in the first three quarters of this year, the operating income has exceeded 50 million yuan, and the net profit of more than 800,000 yuan has been realized, although the cash flow is negative, we can still see that a hot product has a pulling effect on the game company, just like "Original God" on Mihayou.
Unit: Yuan; Source: Kaiying Network Announcement
It should be pointed out that in several different types of so-called "two-dimensional" games that I have experienced, the most intuitive thing to enter the game is the modeling and screen style, Chen Yu said that "the two-dimensional element is treated as a product Chinese aesthetic way to treat", which also means that once you agree with the aesthetic style of the game, there is no "krypton" or "persuasion krypton" in such games, and some are only "krypton for love" stimulated by dopamine.
However, if there is no unique and perfect world setting, matching growth, combat and other gameplay, as well as a mature economic (Krypton) system, once the game's aesthetic fatigue period, relying on players alone for a long time "Krypton for love" is obviously unrealistic, and under the destruction of many garbage games, now in addition to "micro krypton" players, the consumption of some "krypton" players has been a lot of sanity.
On the topic of "how to make the game maintain its vigorous vitality for a long time", NetEase, which has operated for more than ten years such as "Journey to the West" and "Fantasy Journey to the West", obviously has the most say. This time, NetEase affiliates purchased more than 20% of the shares of Heartlight Liumei, and I believe that NetEase can help "grind a sword for five years" to continue for many seconds.
Just when the "High-tech Hand Group" started, Kaiying Network, which originally held more than 30% of the shares of Xinguang Liumei, transferred most of the shares to NetEase, Sequoia, and Station B, which can only be said to be necessary. The announcement said that "the transfer of part of the equity of Xinguang Liumei is conducive to the company recovering investment costs, realizing the appreciation and withdrawal of investment projects", in my opinion, it is due to the high opening and low exit of the operation of the "High-tech Hand Group" in China, kaiying network has the performance of the heart and weakness, choosing to sell equity cash, and introducing new shareholders is the wisest choice.
Compared with the excellent results of "three weeks of flow breaking 100 million", the current "high-skilled hand group" in China's mobile game income is not worth mentioning, compared to the similar game "Place Girl" in the third quarter of this year's overseas income ranked tenth, "high-skilled hand group" is still in the 30 outside, even TapTap's TOP150, can not find the trace of "high-ability hand group", so in the persistence of the game, the heart light flow beauty really more to NetEase to learn from the experience.
In terms of game mechanics, learn more from NetEase, and the game will rely on station B when it goes to sea and IP linkage.
In September this year, B station fully agent of the release of "high-skilled hand group" in South Korea, the number of reservations exceeded 1 million, after the IOS and Google Play synchronous launch, according to GameRes observation, in addition to the top of the double-end free TOP 1, in the second week of the launch of the Google Play best-selling TOP4, for two consecutive weeks ranked in the top 3 google play downloads, the performance once exceeded the Paradise 2M, Jianling 2, MU and other heavy funds to promote the Korean local mobile games.
In the third quarter of this year, in the revenue ranking of Chinese mobile games in South Korea, "High-skilled Hand Group" ranked 8th, surpassing Mihayou's veteran two-dimensional game "Crash 3", which can be said to be a very eye-catching achievement. In a series of press releases and investments, we can also see a change in station B's perception of the important commercial channel of games.
Source: Sensor Tower
When Chen Rui, chairman of Station B, went public in the United States in 2018, he once said that "Station B is not a typical game company", which means very clearly, getting rid of the positioning of game companies, and bluntly saying that Station B has more possibilities for commercialization.
When the game business was listed on the B station, the proportion of revenue accounted for more than 70%, and in recent years, the proportion has been declining, as of the third quarter of this year, the proportion has been as low as 27.43%, value-added services (large members, etc.) have surpassed the game, becoming the largest contributor to revenue, the proportion of advertising revenue is also approaching the game, and compared with the third quarter of 2020, the game business of the B station this year is declining year-on-year.
Source: Bilibili Three Quarterly Reports
But you see in the B station of more than 150 investments, in addition to the "settled and established" cost of the two-dimensional animation, the highest proportion of investment amount and quantity is still the game, and the game investment in terms of quantity, is not much worse than the anime. Therefore, using a small amount of investment in a single amount and binding a high-quality two-dimensional game company has become the main playing method of Station B. Today, the prospects of the domestic game industry are limited, and going to sea has become the main direction of B station games.
Source: CVSocurs hit data
And in terms of games, there are many content that can be done on the B station in addition to distribution, for example, in February this year, "High-tech Hand Group" jointly launched linkage characters, skins and other content with well-known two-dimensional IP "Hatsune Mirai" and "Kizuna AI"; the popular characters in the game have also been developed into physical handmade sales, as well as some derivative T-shirts and other physical content.
The huge volume of secondary IP accumulated by Station B in recent years, as well as the ultra-high viscosity of two-dimensional users, have added a lot of imagination space to the "High-tech Hand Group" and other similar two-dimensional games under Station B. Chen Rui also believes that the video ecology and game ecology of Station B are a model that can "develop together".
Today we see that B Station is attacking from all sides in the investment field, maintaining its own "moat" in content, and at the same time, with extremely high traffic procurement and content production costs, it can also support the rapid growth of B Station's value-added services and advertising, but the sustainability and the so-called "input-output ratio" are still in doubt.
Under the lessons of iQiyi, the prospects of pan-content business are extremely limited, China's Netflix is not good, perhaps the game goes to sea, should be placed by the B station in a higher strategic position to look at.
To be a "Tencent in the two-dimensional field", is he not fragrant?
This article is from the WeChat public account "China-Venture" (ID: China-Venture), author: Zhang Nan, 36Kr is published with permission.