Explosion reduction, cost increase The growth rate of China's game market will decline in 2021

Economic Observer Network reporter Xie Chuchu On December 16, the Game Working Committee (GPC) of the China Music and Digital Association and the China Game Industry Research Institute released the "2021 China Game Industry Report". The report shows that in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 17.826 billion yuan over 2020, an increase of 6.40% year-on-year. Although the actual sales revenue still maintained a growth trend, the proportion of growth was reduced by nearly 15% compared with last year's year-on-year. The main reasons are: the stimulation effect of the home economy under the new crown epidemic gradually weakened last year; the number of annual hits decreased year-on-year; and the cost of game development and operating distribution continued to increase.

In 2021, the scale of Game Users in China reached 666 million, an increase of 0.22% year-on-year. The reason for the small change in user size is that the dividend of the game population tends to be saturated. Among them, the reason for the decline in the scale of users in the second half of the year compared with the first half of the year is the landing of new anti-addiction regulations.

Self-developed games dominate the business of domestic game companies. 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, but the growth rate was about 20% smaller than last year. The main reason is that there are fewer new products on the market this year, and the flow of water mainly relies on the past, while the consumption ability driven by the past products is gradually weakening, and the willingness of paying players to consume is also reduced. In 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets reached 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year. The year-on-year decline in growth was comparable to that of the domestic market, about 17%.

In 2021, in the revenue distribution of china's independently developed mobile games overseas key regions, revenue from the US market accounted for 32.58%, ranking first. Revenue from Japan and South Korea accounted for 18.54% and 7.19% respectively. Although the three regions together contributed 58.31% of China's independently developed mobile game overseas revenue. However, from the data of the past three years, the total proportion of the three regions is decreasing year by year, and the proportion of other regions is increasing year by year.

China Mobile Games is still the main body of China's game market, accounting for 76.06% of revenue. But the increase is about 25% smaller than last year. In 2021, the scale of mobile game users in China reached 656 million, an increase of 0.23% year-on-year, and the scale of mobile game users continued to rise. However, it is also affected by demographic changes and the scale of capacity tends to be saturated.

Compared with client games, the actual sales revenue of China's client game market in 2021 was 58.8 billion yuan, an increase of 2.880 billion yuan over 2020, an increase of 5.15% year-on-year, which was the first growth trend in the past three years. Based on this, the report also pointed out that affected by the trend of global "large-screen games", China's game product form has also shown a trend that mobile games and client games go hand in hand.

In 2021, among the top 100 mobile game product IP types in revenue, the largest proportion is self-created IP, accounting for 41%. The number of self-created IP accounted for an increase of 5% compared with last year, indicating that game companies attach more importance to the creation and operation of game-created IP, and realize the importance of self-created IP to extend the life cycle of games and gain user and market recognition. Correspondingly, in 2021, among the top 100 mobile game product IP types in revenue, the highest proportion of revenue is self-created IP, accounting for 42.46%.

From the perspective of specific themes, in 2021, among the top 100 products in China's mobile game revenue, the top three genres with the highest revenue are fantasy/magic themes, cultural fusion themes and modern themes, accounting for 22.12%, 15.82% and 15.81% respectively.

In terms of e-sports, in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's e-sports game market was 140.181 billion yuan, an increase of 2.65% year-on-year, but the growth rate was about 42% smaller than last year, and the growth rate slowed down. The main reasons are: e-sports game sales revenue is the main source of income in the e-sports market, affected by the overall game market led to a decline in the growth rate of e-sports market revenue; this year continued to be affected by the epidemic, important e-sports events offline activities decreased, and online models are difficult to achieve commercial realization; the policy requirements for minors' online game anti-addiction have a certain impact on the commercial operation of clubs and events.