Per editor: Dong Xingsheng
From December 14th to 16th, the 2021 China Game Industry Annual Conference was held in Guangzhou, and The Daily Economic News is the cooperative media of the conference. On the morning of the 16th, the Game Working Committee of the China Music and Digital Association and the China Game Industry Research Institute released the "2021 China Game Industry Report".
The Daily Economic News reporter learned at the scene that the actual sales revenue of China's game market in 2021 was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 6.40% year-on-year, and the proportion of growth was reduced by nearly 15% compared with last year.
Zhang Yijun, first vice chairman of the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association and chairman of the Game Working Committee, said that the decline in the growth rate of sales revenue in the game market is mainly due to the gradual weakening of the stimulation effect of the home economy under the impact of the new crown epidemic, while the number of annual explosive models decreased year-on-year, and the continuous increase in game research and development and operating and distribution costs.
Image source: Courtesy of the organizer
Revenue growth declined User dividends peaked
The report shows that in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 6.40% year-on-year, and the proportion of growth was reduced by nearly 15% compared with last year' year-on-year; the actual sales revenue of China's e-sports game market was 140.181 billion yuan, an increase of 2.65% year-on-year, an increase of about 42% compared with last year's year-on-year, and the growth rate fell significantly.
In terms of users, the scale of Chinese game users in 2021 reached 666 million people, an increase of 0.22% year-on-year, the lowest growth rate in eight years; the scale of Chinese e-sports game users reached 489 million, an increase of 0.27% year-on-year, and the game demographic dividend was obviously saturated.
Zhang Yijun pointed out that although the offline activities of e-sports have decreased due to the impact of the epidemic, and the introduction of anti-addiction policies for minors' online games has also had a certain impact on the commercial operation of clubs and events, in the context of e-sports entering Asia and the League of Legends finals, the e-sports market may usher in a new round of growth next year.
With the peak of the traffic dividend and the increase in cost, high-quality self-developed product content has become the key to attracting users and retaining users.
In 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in the domestic market was 255.819 billion yuan, an increase of 6.51% year-on-year, and the growth rate was about 20% smaller than last year. Self-developed games still occupy a dominant position in the business of domestic game companies, but this year there are fewer new products on the line, and the flow mainly relies on the past product support.
In terms of going to sea, the actual sales revenue of China's independently developed games in overseas markets reached 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year, and the share of China's games going to sea showed a steady upward trend.
Among them, the United States, Japan and South Korea are still the main markets for China's independent research and development of mobile games to go global, accounting for 58.31% of the total revenue of overseas. However, compared with the past, the market share of the three regions has decreased year by year, and the proportion of other regions has increased year by year, and China's self-developed games are actively exploring overseas emerging markets.
Image source: Screenshot of the report
Console games rise Two-dimensional and mobile casual games perform well
The development of the mobile Internet has changed our lives and opened the era of mobile games.
The data shows that in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's mobile game market was 225.538 billion yuan, an increase of 7.57% year-on-year, accounting for 76.06%, and mobile games still occupy the dominant position in China's game market.
In 2021, the actual revenue of the client game market was 58.8 billion yuan, an increase of 5.15% year-on-year, and the growth occurred for the first time in the past three years; the actual sales revenue of the web game market was 6.030 billion yuan, down 20.74% year-on-year, declining for 5 consecutive years, and the market share continued to shrink.
It is worth noting that the "Report" for the first time disclosed the data of China's console game market, in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's console game market reached 2.580 billion yuan, an increase of 22.34% year-on-year.
Zhang Yijun said: "The release of new console hardware and independent research and development products have successively landed on the host platform, which has made the revenue of the console game market increase significantly. The characteristics of exquisite picture quality, rich gameplay and strong sense of experience also make console games expected to become another growth point of the domestic game market in the future. ”
In terms of subdivided game categories, the actual sales revenue of the two-dimensional mobile game market in 2021 reached 28.425 billion yuan, an increase of 27.43% year-on-year. The rise of "Generation Z" has prompted enterprises to increase investment in the development and promotion of secondary themes, driving the development of the two-dimensional game market.
In addition to two-dimensional games, the field of mobile casual games also shows great potential. The data shows that China's mobile casual games achieved revenue of 34.653 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 17.42% year-on-year. Among them, the sales revenue generated by in-game purchase is 6.944 billion yuan, and the advertising monetization income is 27.709 billion yuan, and the IAA (in-app advertising) model is still the main way for casual games to obtain revenue.
The report pointed out that in the future, China's game industry should take the protection of minors and anti-addiction work as the top priority, and at the same time give full play to the technical advantages and user resource advantages of China's game industry, enhance the industry's independent innovation ability, deeply cultivate the characteristics of the cultural industry, increase the development of high-quality products, and accelerate the upgrading of industrial formats.
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