"What else can we do, vigorously develop overseas?"
More than one game company executive expressed the above views to The Company. Throughout 2021, the game industry is facing three major mountains: version shortage, product shortage, and traffic shortage. The way manufacturers break the game is not bad, and the overseas market has become the first choice.
As a new force in the game, ByteDance has continued last year's overseas priority strategy this year. Last November, ByteDance's game subsidiary announced an investment in casual game maker Mabo Games. According to reports, the amount of byte additional investment is 100 million yuan.
McBord Games' mobile games include Angry Birds Blast, StarryNuts, What's This, Fatty Cow, etc.
Angry Birds has received global recommendations from apple stores and Google play in more than 140 countries and regions around the world, and has become one of the top 5 match-3 games in the world for several months. This gives McBot Games a certain influence in overseas markets.
MaiBo Games has long been deeply involved in the field of overseas casual games, and ByteDance's investment in it can be said to be the alchemy of deeply stepping into the overseas game market.
Throw money overseas, buy, buy, buy
Byte increased efforts to lay out overseas, has its subjective initiative. There is also a difficult environment for the objective version.
Earlier, the competition core mentioned in the article "The game department is completely destroyed, the hard wounds and weaknesses of Baidu games", and the hard injury of the version number has stranded the game business of the old Internet company.
For example, the big IP products "Digimon: Source Code" and "Wu Gengji" that Baidu Games focused on investing in were restricted by the policy and have not been able to obtain version numbers so far.
According to the statistics of the competition, as of December 31, a total of 755 game versions have been issued in 2021. Its Chinese version number 679 models, imported game version number 76 models.
In view of the version of the regulation policy, manufacturers are changing in business strategy, at this time to go to sea has become the first choice, investment in overseas waves are also coming from all over the world.
As early as 2019, Ma Xiaoyi, senior vice president of Tencent, publicly stated that in the future, Tencent games should "go hand in hand with domestic and overseas", and hoped to achieve product success on different platforms, different regions and different categories with core gameplay and basic quality.
Last year, Tencent officially announced the launch of the overseas brand Level Infinite in order to lay out overseas markets, which will release game masterpieces produced by Tencent Games' studios and other third-party studios, and will also provide a series of support and services for overseas cooperative studios based on its international business layout.
Coincidentally, NetEase said on the second quarter of 2021 earnings call that NetEase Games plans to invest $1 billion in overseas marketing in 3 to 5 years.
Hu Zhipeng, vice president of NetEase, also said in an interview with foreign media that he hopes to use "Forever Doomed" to promote NetEase's expansion in overseas markets. Hu Zhipeng said that the company hopes that 50% of its game revenue in the future will come from overseas markets. The proportion is currently around 10 per cent. ”
Although going to the sea to pan for gold is a more ideal choice for large manufacturers, for domestic small and medium-sized manufacturers, waiting for the version number means that it is difficult to enter the game market through product stock, and the pressure on product launch and operation is great.
According to foreign media estimates, about 14,000 development studios in China have closed since China issued a video game approval freeze nine months ago. This situation is expected to continue into this year.
Big wave of gold panning, ByteDance also through the acquisition of overseas game manufacturers to enter the overseas market.
In April 2021, Sunrise Lightyear successively acquired a number of game companies such as Ai Interactive Entertainment and Mu Hitomi Technology.
"Place girl" has established a reputation for the Japanese market. Looking back at 2021, "Place girl" is the backbone of the mobile game that cannot be ignored in the mobile game of Japan; Mu Hitomi Technology's "Endless Showdown" is an important target under the umbrella of The Dawn Lightyear, slaughtering the Southeast Asian market.
According to SensorTower's 2021 overseas mobile game revenue list, Byte's products accounting for the top 30 of game overseas revenue have reached 3. Among them, the revenue of Mu Hitomi Technology's "Endless Showdown" increased by 21.6% month-on-month. "Endless Showdown" has achieved remarkable results in the Southeast Asian market, and its national popularity is comparable to the domestic "Glory of the King", also known as the "Glory of the King" in Southeast Asia.
In addition, Asahi Lightyear has also gained a foothold in the Southeast Asian market with the popularity of "RO Wonderland Legend: The Birth of a New Generation".
These products help Lightyear build national popularity in game markets such as Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
According to InvestGame, in the first quarter of last year, ByteDance ranked third in the global game industry investment with a sky-high acquisition price of $4 billion. The goal of this investment in Maibo Games is to turn to the overseas game market to accumulate experience and further expand the overseas market territory.
Facing overseas medium and heavy game tracks, Byte has enhanced its own strength through acquisitions. For example, the MOBA game "Endless Showdown" developed by Mu Hitomi Technology has exceeded 90 million monthly active users in the world, and all of them are overseas users; Youai Interactive Entertainment is the main Japanese secondary market, and in the past two years, many two-dimensional mobile games have achieved a lot of attention, and the game theme has continued to move closer to the secondary.
The acquisition of Mu Hitomi Technology and Youai Interactive Entertainment expanded the discourse power of overseas markets for The Day and Night Lightyear, and also accumulated certain experience for Byte to conquer the world.
Byte has won a number of game categories in overseas markets, or created national games.
In addition to "Endless Showdown" in Southeast Asia, "RO Wonderland: The Birth of a New Generation" (ROX) operates in a people-friendly manner, using localized operations to make a name for itself, and has long been deeply rooted in the market, and last year it included the list of 2021 Game Awards announced by Google Play.
Through the acquisition of overseas game manufacturers, the layout of the global market, so that byte in the middle and heavy game track to stand out. This investment in Mai Bo Games expands the scope of casual games and ends the investment at the end of the year.
Byte Game Territory has its own R&D line, which seems to be very complete
Investing is a strategic means of byte layout games.
In 2020, ByteDance began to show the wild hope of gold panning in the big wave, starting from the small number of shares into Youai Interactive Entertainment, testing the Waters of the Japanese market. In 2021, ByteDance will step up its pace to enter overseas markets, wholly acquire game companies, and blow the clarion call to conquer overseas.
Byte's determination to enter the field of gaming cannot be questioned. Officially established in 2019, It is mainly focused on the development and distribution of medium and heavy games. Subsequently, mobile games such as "Blood Street Basket", "Dart Man", and "Legend of the Spirit Cat" were successively launched.
Last year, Dawn lightyear continued to exert efforts in self-developed games. The mobile game "Wulin Idler" and the mobile game "Huayishan Heart Moon" were launched in November.
According to the Sensor Report, both mobile games achieved different growth in December 2021, resulting in a 21.5% increase in publisher revenue. Among them, the revenue of the mobile game "Hua Yi Shan Heart Month" increased by 122% month-on-month, becoming the highest-paid mobile game product under the Bright Year in December.
As the first self-developed game, "Flower Yishan Heart Moon" took a big step towards the national wind and fever, drove straight into the female market, and won the November Best Game Award recommended by the App Store editors in the month of launch.
This is a successful breakthrough in the byte game self-developed category, and the production team has carefully polished around the theme of national style, from content marketing to publicity, around the sense of immersion, and successfully broke the circle.
From the excellent results, we can see the intentions of the production team of "HuaYishan Heart Moon", and at the same time, it has won the affirmation of players. Even without game genes, it can also perform miracles and occupy a place in the domestic women to the market.
In addition to the genre of "Hua Yi Shan", which is a female theme, The Day and Night Lightyear is expanding across the category.
Asahi Light & Annual focuses on heavy games such as MMORPG and ARPG for independent research and development. On the TapTap reservation list, self-developed game masterpieces such as MMOACT "Crystal Nucleus" and the doomsday survival shooter "Codename: Arrival" were exposed.
Successful self-developed mobile games can lay the foundation for the risers and seize a place in the game market.
In addition, based on the strategic development of the target global company, the self-developed mobile game with good performance may be further laid out in overseas markets after it is launched.
I don't know how long byte games will have to wait for the next hit.
After the layoffs, do not forget to reorganize the cards in your hand
Even the upstarts who stand out from the game industry still have to face the dilemma of the overall industry and policy after playing a good hand.
Last year can be said to be a continuation of the cold winter of the game circle, and the layoffs were all over the place, and Byte was no exception.
In August last year, the casual game brand Ohayoo underwent personnel changes, and general manager Xu Peixiang left for personal reasons. At the same time, Byte integrates the three major departments of game platform, R&D center and distribution, and merges the original business, market, distribution operation and product into the distribution department.
In addition, 30 of the 79 employees surrounding Ohayoo's sharp layoffs include school enrollment, compensation for N+1, and notification that the internal transfer time limit is only one month. In addition, employees are ordered to complete the separation procedures within 2 days. In response, byte official response and willing to admit the news of layoffs.
The flow of personnel and the subsequent integration of the game department are also due to the adjustment of operational resources.
After the layoffs under ByteDance's Ohayoo, ByteDance's game expansion has not stopped developing.
According to 36Kr statistics, in 2020, Byte has established eight major game studios in four places through acquisition and formation, with a game team of 1,000 people, more than 20 agents, and self-developed games.
But as of this year, continuous acquisitions, shareholdings, and rapid entry into the game industry, ByteDance currently has 31 game companies, 10+ game studios, 4 major distribution platforms and 2000+ employees.
Judging from the layout of byte overseas, byte has successively made up for the lack of short versions.
Byte combines Love Interactive Entertainment and Mu Hitomi Technology, and the commercial value brought by the two companies to Byte is not insignificant. For example, in the past two years, the two-dimensional market has sprung up, and the national version of MOBA games and other themes have been strengthened. In addition to closing the gap, the premise of the acquisition is to target global players.
Yan Zhi, president of Chaoxi Lightyear, said: "In the matter of globalization, many game companies talk about 'going to sea' and stand in China to see the outside. And we believe that the new generation of game companies is 'born global'. ”
This means that Byte aims to become an emerging global game company.
Overall, Byte has successfully seized the Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian markets, and firmly established the strategic direction of acquisition + self-research, allowing Byte to continue to promote the global game layout. "Mighty may really miracle", Byte's ambitions are not limited to domestic, looking forward to the global market, becoming a global game company.
epilogue:
In addition to being limited by the issuance of version numbers, the acquisition of studios has also become a move for big manufacturers to win against overseas markets.
From self-development to acquisition, from ultra-casual to medium to heavy, Byte plays the power of banknotes, sweeping goods game companies.
Byte is accelerating the expansion of the overseas game business, when will it take shape?