"2021 China Game Industry Report" officially released: actual revenue increased by 6.4% year-on-year

On December 16, the 2021 China Game Industry Annual Conference was held in Huangpu, Guangzhou. Zhang Yijun, first vice chairman of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association and chairman of the Game Working Committee of the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association, officially released the "2021 China Game Industry Report" at the industry annual meeting.

The report proposes that in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market will be 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 17.826 billion yuan over last year, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year. Although the income still maintained growth, under the influence of the gradual decline in the economic effect of the home economy and the decline in the number of explosive products, the growth rate was reduced by nearly 15% compared with last year.

The scale of domestic game users was 666 million, an increase of 0.22% year-on-year, and the number of users was gradually saturated. With the landing of new anti-addiction regulations and the gradual deepening of uninsured work, the user structure will further become healthy and reasonable.

In the sales revenue of the domestic game market, the biggest contributor is still the independent research and development of games. In 2021, the sales revenue of the domestic market of self-developed games was 255.819 billion yuan, an increase of 15.627 billion yuan over last year, an increase of 6.51% year-on-year, and an increase of about 20% year-on-year.

At the same time, the sales revenue of self-developed games in overseas markets was 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 2.563 billion US dollars over last year, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year, and an increase of about 17% year-on-year.

Overall, from the perspective of the development trend in the past five years, China's game going overseas has shown a steady upward trend, and the number of user downloads, the length of use and the amount of payment have maintained a steady growth.

In 2021, the number of countries and regions involved in China's game industry going to sea will increase significantly, and the types of products will be more diversified.

The United States, Japan and South Korea are still the main markets for games to go global, but from the data of the past three years, their total proportion has shown a downward trend year by year, and the proportion of other regions has increased year by year, indicating that China's self-developed games are constantly expanding emerging markets.

In the self-developed mobile games exported overseas, the three types of games such as strategy, role-playing and shooting have accounted for more than 60% of revenue in the past three years, and the ranking of other types has often changed. In 2021, the outstanding performance is the elimination class, multiplayer online tactical competition class and simulated business class. It shows that self-developed games have shown multi-type parallel development, and their competitiveness has continued to improve.

Mobile games still occupy the mainstream of the domestic game market, accounting for 76.06% of the total revenue. Client games accounted for 19.83%, basically stable; web games are still shrinking, accounting for only 2.03%, and sales revenue and market share continue to decline.

In 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's mobile game market was 225.538 billion yuan, an increase of 15.862 billion yuan over last year, an increase of 7.57% year-on-year. Due to the significant decrease in the number of new mobile game launches this year, the source of revenue mainly relies on the support of the original products, resulting in a year-on-year reduction of 28%.

The variety of mobile games is becoming more abundant, providing users with more diverse choices. According to statistical analysis, in 2021, among the top 100 domestic mobile game revenue products, role-playing, card, and strategy games account for half of the country, indicating the preferences of players and the relatively concentrated market supply of enterprises; in addition, role-playing, multiplayer online tactical competition and shooting games account for more than 50% of total revenue, reflecting the objective reality that the user base of these three types of games is large. It is worth noting that the role-playing category ranks first in terms of both game type and market revenue.

In 2021, the sales revenue of the domestic client game market was 58.8 billion yuan, an increase of 2.88 billion yuan over last year, an increase of 5.15% year-on-year, which was the first positive growth in three years, mainly due to the outstanding performance of newly listed client products this year, and the gradual rise of the full-platform distribution model with mobile games as the core, and the return of user habits.

The number of web game services continues to decrease, although the head game company is still developing web games, due to the lack of innovation, it is difficult to suppress the continuous shrinking of the market space, the actual sales revenue is only 6.030 billion yuan, compared with last year, another 1.578 billion yuan, down 20.74% year-on-year, continuing the downward trend for 5 consecutive years.

In 2021, the sales revenue of the domestic console game market was 2.58 billion yuan, an increase of 22.34% year-on-year. New console hardware was released, and independently developed products have been landed on the console platform, making the console game market revenue 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.

The revenue of the domestic leisure game market was 34.653 billion yuan, an increase of 17.42% year-on-year. Among them, the sales revenue generated by in-game purchases was 6.944 billion yuan, and the advertising monetization income was 27.709 billion yuan. The data shows that the IAA model is still the main way to generate revenue for casual games.

In 2021, taking the e-sports into Asia and the "League of Legends" finals as an opportunity, the social impact of the e-sports industry continued to expand, and the sales revenue of the domestic e-sports market was 140.181 billion yuan, an increase of 3.624 billion yuan over last year, an increase of 2.65% year-on-year, a year-on-year decrease of 42%, and the growth rate slowed down. The scale of users was 489 million, an increase of 0.27% year-on-year.

E-sports game sales revenue is the main source of income in the e-sports market, affected by the reduction of offline activities, the difficulty of online marketing monetization, the landing of anti-addiction policies and the narrowing of the overall game market revenue, the growth rate of e-sports market revenue and user scale have declined to a certain extent.

Combined with the comprehensive analysis and judgment of multi-faceted professional information and data, the overall situation of the game industry in 2021 can be summarized as follows:

1. The protection of minors and the prevention of addiction are an important prerequisite for the sustainable development of China's game industry. The official launch of the national real-name authentication platform and the improvement of the industry standard system will promote the continuous upgrading of the means of protection of minors.

2. The support and guidance of local cultural industry policies will accelerate the adjustment and change of the layout of the domestic game industry, and the organic combination of cities, regions and game industries will form a new highland for the development of more industrial agglomerations, and promote the multi-dimensional development of Chinese game enterprises.

3. With the continuous change of consumer demand, the symbiotic development trend of product forms is obvious, the "multi-terminal and simultaneous" trend of high-quality games has gradually become a trend, the importance of game self-created IP is highlighted, and focusing on high-quality long-term development and operation will become a well-thought-out development topic that current game companies must consider.

4. Game going to sea has become a strategic choice for most game companies, and with the improvement of the international competitiveness of China's game industry and the growth of the scale of going to sea, the international influence of Chinese culture and Chinese elements will also be enhanced and expanded.

5. The development momentum of e-sports has not decreased, and it has become an eye-catching economic, social and cultural phenomenon, and the social impact of the e-sports industry has expanded, forming a more systematic ecological closed loop, and will continue to enhance its core competitiveness through innovative event operations and other means.

6. The upgrading of science and technology accelerates the transformation of the game industry, and the development of the industry helps scientific and technological innovation, making the game an experimental field for the application of new technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence. At the same time, the diversified integration formed by "Game +" extends the social function of the game and provides a broader practice platform for its diversified empowerment.

7. All game enterprises pay more attention to internal ideological and cultural construction and social image shaping, generally increase the intensity of "three histories" study and education, actively participate in social welfare activities, and the awareness of self-discipline and the willingness to fulfill social responsibilities are also continuously improving.

Text/Guangzhou Daily Xinhuacheng reporter Cheng Yilun

Photo: Guangzhou Daily Xinhuacheng reporter Cheng Yilun

Video/ Guangzhou Daily Xinhuacheng reporter Cheng Yilun

Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor Cai Lingyue