Without the live broadcast of the game, how much of Wang Sicong's e-sports territory is there?
Author | Zhou Rong
Editor 丨 Cai Zhen
Source | Mustang Finance
"Double Twelve" arrived, and Wang Sicong's two "goods" were officially listed.
After a long period of "warm-up", the external receivables of the two batches of Shanghai Panda Interactive Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Panda Interactive Entertainment") were finally auctioned at 10 o'clock on December 12. Among them, the two batches of accounts receivable of Panda Interactive Entertainment were 2.52 million yuan and 55.156 million yuan respectively, and the starting price was 252,200 yuan and 11.0313 million yuan, respectively.
The auction will end at 10:00 a.m. on December 13, and as of press time, both batches of claims have received more than 1,000 onlookers, but no one has yet registered.
Source: Ali Auctions
Five years ago, when Wang Sicong announced his appointment as CEO of Panda Interactive Entertainment, he would never have imagined that he would receive five consumption restriction orders, and finally even sell the debts of the bankrupt Panda Interactive Entertainment.
In fact, Panda Interactive Entertainment, which relies on Wang Sicong, has developed smoothly in the first few years. According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, in May 2017, when Panda Interactive Entertainment raised A series B financing, its monthly active users were 6.644 million, ranking third in China's game live broadcasting market.
However, just one year later, Panda Interactive Entertainment began to fall behind significantly. Aurora big data shows that from September 2017 to February 2018, the average DAU of Panda live broadcast was about 2.72 million people. At the end of 2018, the average DAU of Douyu and Huya increased from 6 million and 4 million to 7 million, but the panda shrank to 2.3 million.
The reason for all this is largely because of the internal problems of the panda.
Despite the overwhelming publicity, Wang Sicong is almost equal to Panda Interactive Entertainment, but from the perspective of equity structure, Panda Interactive Entertainment also has a very strong person - 360.
According to public information, As CEO, Wang Sicong owns 40.07% of the shares of Panda Interactive Entertainment, and 360 holds nearly 20% of the shares.
Previously, Zhou Hongyi had publicly told the media: "360 provides support for Panda TV with live broadcast technology. With 360's investment in Panda Interactive Entertainment, former 360 members such as Zhang Juyuan, Ma Yiduo, and Charter also joined the company, and gradually took power in the fields of operation and products.
This brings two dangers, infighting and corruption.
Entertainment Capital once reported, "The 360 team put the Wang Sicong team out of the air and did nothing but infighting." "If these are all news of catching wind and shadows, then the accusations of game anchor PDD on Panda Interactive Entertainment clearly reveal to us that in addition to Wang Sicong, there is another faction of Panda Interactive Entertainment."
At the end of 2018, due to the "contract dispute" issue, PDD filed a lawsuit against Panda, at the same time, PDD also specifically stated that the lawsuit had nothing to do with Wang Sicong, "If it is Wang Sicong's problem, the money can be dispensed with." ”
360 has been deeply engaged in the Internet field for many years, but the live broadcast business such as water drops, peppercorns, and six rooms that it has invested in has not risen.
"All-weather technology" reported that at the beginning of 2019, the market broke the news that Ma Yiduo, then general manager of Panda TV's game business, would take a rebate of up to 15% when Panda signed an anchor, and even "some anchors will be excluded if they do not give money."
Speaking of signing contracts, at the beginning of its establishment, in order to seize the market with "short and fast", Panda Interactive Entertainment did not hesitate to spend several times the price to recruit people from other platforms, which in addition to leaving the leader with "rent-seeking" space, the more serious problem is that it will affect Panda's cash flow.
Previously, there were rumors that in order to dig up the "top card" PDD of the League of Legends, Panda offered it a sky-high price of 300 million yuan in 5 years. During the live broadcast, PDD also said ecstatically: "Principal Wang is too powerful, how much money can not be disclosed, but it can be said that I have the highest signing fee in the anchor industry!" ”
However, game live broadcasting itself is a very expensive industry, and servers, bandwidth, and operations all require unimaginable costs. Taking Douyu, which has been successfully listed, as an example, in Q3 of 2021, its net loss still reached 0.72 billion yuan, which is the fourth consecutive quarter of Douyu's loss.
In the stage of staking land, the "strategic loss" needs investors to throw money as fuel, but at the most critical moment, Panda Interactive Entertainment can not find investors with blood transfusions.
According to public information, in May 2017, Panda Interactive Entertainment received the last financing of 1 billion yuan, and did not get new funds. In contrast, its losses have been rising year after year, with losses of 50 million yuan, 500 million yuan and 800 million yuan from 2015 to 2017, respectively.
In this regard, in the internal letter released by Panda Interactive Entertainment when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, Zhang Juyuan COO admitted that the biggest reason for the company was that it had not solved the funding gap.
On the other hand, Douyu and Huya are soberly aware of the single revenue model, but the live broadcast business that requires continuous blood transfusion must rely on a large platform to survive, so it is possible to take sides with Tencent early.
What is intriguing is that after Douyu and Huya both joined Tencent, there were also rumors that Tencent intended to acquire Panda Interactive Entertainment, but eventually aborted. Is this due to Wang Sicong's "pride" or Zhou Hongyi's opposition? We don't know.
Yes, Panda Interactive Entertainment has completely become history, but this does not mean that Wang Sicong's game industry has also fallen into loneliness.
Let's look back a decade. In the early morning of August 2, 2011, 23-year-old Wang Sicong posted a Weibo: "Strong entry into integrated e-sports", and has since begun a slow journey in the field of games.
That year, Forbes China's first good was Wang Jianlin, and the first good in the e-sports circle was probably Wang Sicong.
Pressing the fast-forward button, Wang Sicong completed the acquisition of the CMM that was on the verge of dissolution, and then poached 4 generals from the old strong team LGD, established the iG (Invictus Gaming) club, and quickly completed the dimensionality reduction attack on the old system with money.
In 2012, iG won the TI2 championship. That year, Sun Xiyao, the third generation of the rich in Huaxi Village, intervened in restructuring and forced to disband China's oldest e-sports club, EHOME. His Yaoyu Culture's platform MarsTV is engaged in e-sports event operations and video production, and at the same time founded Firecat TV, engaged in game video live broadcasting business.
The 21-year-old eagle farmer and herding son Hou Geting came to Shanghai with his first venture capital to form the Remei (RM) team, but it was soon disbanded. In May 2014, Hou Geting established Shanghai Remei Culture, set up his own RM youth training club, and collected the royal team into the bag; in June, Weike with a registered capital of 20 million yuan was established, and Young Eagle Agriculture and Animal Husbandry invested 10.2 million yuan, accounting for 51% of the shares.
Although part of the reason why the rich second generation entered the game of e-sports was from hobbies, as an investment choice, e-sports was indeed a blue ocean at that time.
According to the 2018 Sports Industry Report released by PwC, e-sports has surpassed football to become the sport with the most revenue-generating potential that is unanimously optimistic about sports people around the world.
Taking the game live broadcasting industry targeted by Panda Interactive Entertainment as an example, the "2016 Live App Data Report" released by QuestMobile shows that from October 2015 to May 2016, the online live broadcast APP MAU increased from 52.71 million to 85.85 million, an increase of 38.6%. Analysys data also shows that in 2015, the scale of China's live broadcast market reached 1.18 billion yuan, of which the game live market reached 110 million yuan.
Wang Sicong's "Banana Project" hosted the 2015 Demacia Cup
Source: League of Legends official website
As for why the game live broadcasting industry will suddenly explode, Zhuang Minghao, VP of Jingwei Venture Capital, once said: "As the society's recognition of games and the popularity of games become higher and higher, 'cloud players' will slowly appear." They may not play the game, or they have played it before but not now, but they have a certain knowledge and understanding of the game, and are willing to watch and pay. Just like traditional sports, many spectators will not play basketball or tennis, but will watch. ”
Unfortunately, as mentioned above, although it caught up with the wind outlet, due to various factors, Panda Interactive Entertainment did not escape the fate of breaking the sand in the end.
Around 2018, Wang Jianlin's Wanda Group fell into trouble and began to empty overseas assets, Wang Sicong did not send Weibo for half a year, but appeared in the list of untrustworthy people; Chick Ying Agriculture and Animal Husbandry lost 3 billion yuan in 2018, inquiry letters and case filing notices came pouring in, Hou Geting's Taodou Food also went bankrupt in this year; Sun Xiyao withdrew from Ehome, but Huaxi Group is still the majority shareholder of the club.
The rich second generation, who are reluctant to inherit the industry, find the pleasure or vanity of entrepreneurship in the game, but they have to withdraw one after another during the period when their parents' wealth has plummeted.
In August 2018, Wang Sicong played a game that attracted countless eyeballs, and then officially revised the loopholes in player registration; in March 2019, Panda Live removed the station; in January 2021, Hero Sports VSPN acquired Banana Plan Video Game Co., Ltd., the former invested by Tencent.
However, Wang Sicong's investment in the field of e-sports is not only Panda Interactive Entertainment. According to financing China statistics, as of October 2021, Pulse Capital has invested in more than 40 projects, and in these projects, Wang Sicong has also reaped good business returns.
For example, in August 2014, Leju Games went public, bringing Wang Sicong a 5-fold return; in mid-2016, Wang Sicong sold "Hero Interactive Entertainment" stocks, earning 51.81 million yuan in just half a year, with a yield of up to 65%.
Of course, rather than pure commercial returns, Wang Sicong seems to prefer to tell a grand e-sports ecological story. Because from the perspective of investment, Pulse Capital's tentacles are almost all-encompassing in the game industry. For example, Yunyou Holdings is a light game development and distribution company, Dreamworld provides online and offline digital entertainment services such as social game platforms, and ImbaTV is an original content producer for e-sports games.
Even in September 2021, Pulse invested in Tidu Education, an e-sports education company that specializes in "e-sports vocational skills training", which is the business of e-sports elders Sky and Zhou Hao. Considering that talent is currently the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of the e-sports industry, Wang Sicong's entry into the relevant training industry obviously has a very clear purpose.
Source: Aiqicha
But then again, Panda Interactive Entertainment has indeed failed, the traffic entrance of the live broadcast platform is missing, and how Wang Sicong's e-sports empire can tap the audience to a greater extent may be the most urgent task at present.
What do you think will happen to Wang Sicong's debt auction? Feel free to let us know in the comments section.