In 2021, the game industry experienced a "roller coaster": the release of version numbers was suspended, the "strictest new regulations against addiction" were released, and under the background of the market environment of domestic stock competition and strong supervision, many game companies accelerated the layout of overseas business. E-sports entered Asia and EDG won the championship, marking the further popularization and sportsization of e-sports. How will the gaming industry evolve in the new year?
Version number issuance Press the pause button, compliance is where the competitiveness lies
The 2021 China Game Industry Report (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") shows that the sales revenue of china's game market will continue to grow in 2021, but the growth rate has begun to slow down. In 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year. Although the income maintained growth, under the influence of the gradual decline of the home economic effect and the decline in the number of explosive products, the growth rate was reduced by nearly 15% compared with the same period last year in 2020. The decline in the number of explosive products is related to the suspension of the issuance of game version numbers.
Source: Report
The game version number, as the game's "ID card", presses the pause button starting July 22, 2021. As of now, the State Press and Publication Administration has not released the game version number for 5 consecutive months. The data shows that from 2019 to 2021, the number of game versions is 1570, 1405 and 755, respectively. The number of editions in 2021 is only 54% of that of 2020. In December, Yang Fang, deputy director of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, said at the 2021 China Game Industry Annual Conference that it is necessary to resolutely put an end to illegal acts such as unauthorized changes in content and online operation without version numbers, resist disorderly expansion and barbaric growth of capital, and effectively enhance industry self-discipline.
In fact, this is not the first time that the issuance of version numbers has been suspended. Previously, game approval experienced a period of "barbaric growth", and chaos such as game "skinning" for review, online gambling, homogenization, and copyright infringement occurred frequently. In order to standardize the development of the industry and improve the quality of game products, in March 2018, the approval of game version numbers was suspended until it was restored in December of that year. Before the suspension, the number of game version numbers issued in China in 2017 was 9368, and in 2018 after the resumption of approval, the cumulative number of annual distributions was 2064, less than a quarter of what it was before the suspension.
It is worth mentioning that although the pause button was pressed for the issuance of the version number, the process of sending the version number for review continued. Some insiders have analyzed that in recent times, some games sent for review have been returned to be revised, which shows that the regulatory level is also sorting out and upgrading the game review ideas. In the view of Liao Xuhua, a senior analyst in the interactive entertainment industry of Analysys, game companies should also abandon the traffic thinking and think about how to innovate and develop when the version number is suspended. He believes that it is foreseeable that there will be fewer and fewer small teams that play a catfish effect in the game market. In the future, whether the game industry can achieve the upgrading of research and development capabilities, thereby promoting the market to return to high-speed growth, is very dependent on the management capabilities of large manufacturers. Internet analyst Ding Daoshi believes that "2022 will continue the trend of 2021, 'compliance' is a very important tone, compliance is also where the competitiveness of enterprises lies." ”
"In 2022, the State Administration of Press and Publications will implement the 'Online Game Positive Energy Leadership Plan' to promote the creation of a number of excellent original games with good themes, good creativity and high quality." Yang Fang, deputy director of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, revealed this year's "work priorities" at the 2021 China Game Industry Annual Conference.
The "strictest new regulations in history to prevent addiction" landed, and it was not guaranteed to enter a new stage
In addition to the suspension of the release of version numbers, game anti-addiction is also an important topic that the game industry cannot avoid in the past year. On August 30, 2021, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the Notice on Further Strict Management and Effectively Preventing Minors from Addicting to Online Games, which was called "the strictest new regulations on games in history". As soon as the new regulations came out, game companies responded one after another and successively upgraded the anti-addiction system.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
In the following earnings season, listed game companies have also disclosed the proportion of minors. Tencent disclosed in the third quarter report of 2021 that in September 2021, the proportion of Tencent's domestic game flow for minors fell to 1.1%, and the proportion of game time for minor users was 0.7%. In response to investors at the end of August, 37 Interactive Entertainment revealed that the proportion of domestic minors (under 18 years old) recharge flow is less than 5/10,000.
In the future, will the anti-addiction policy for minors' games be further strengthened? Zhang Haibo, executive deputy director of the Media and Education Working Committee of the China Youth Palace Association, believes that the current regulatory provisions for game addiction prevention are in place, "the hard aspects are basically in place, and now the more important issue is how to cooperate with the soft aspects, such as how to educate and guide parents and children." "After the game uninsured work, we need to think about how to divide the game content into levels and age groups, how to encourage game companies to increase positive content supply, how game companies can actively participate in the work of improving parents' and children's network security awareness and network literacy education, and how government enterprises, schools, families and all parties in society can form a more effective synergy."
"The intensity of control will definitely be further strengthened, which is the need for national development, the growth of minors, and the healthy development of the game industry." Sun Hongyan, director of the Institute of Juvenile and Children of the China Youth Research Center, told reporters that with the in-depth implementation of the "Law on the Protection of Minors", the uninsured work of game enterprises will present four major characteristics in the future: First, pay equal attention to protection and development, excavate the positive social value of games, and use game products to help minors develop better in learning, social interaction, leisure, etc.; second, develop friendly game products, take the initiative to develop products that are more in line with the laws and characteristics of children's growth, and protect children's personal information, privacy settings, Strengthen and innovate in many aspects such as children's participation; third, develop in the direction of service-oriented enterprises, provide users with convenient, reasonable and effective complaint and reporting channels, and actively strengthen the review; fourth, refinement, the current level of uninsured games is generally more extensive, and in the future, we must think deeper and more carefully, and work intensively in the field of minor protection.
Under strong supervision, going to sea has become the trend of the times
The "Report" shows that in terms of game users, the scale of domestic game users is 666 million, an increase of 0.22% year-on-year. The slight increase in the number of game users and the contraction in the growth rate of game revenue indicate to a certain extent that the domestic game industry has entered the era of stock competition. At the same time, domestic regulation is also becoming stricter. Under the influence of many factors, "game going to sea" has become the choice of many companies seeking new performance growth points.
The "Report" disclosed that in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets reached 114.6 billion yuan, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year. Judging from the development trend of the past five years, China's game going overseas has shown a steady upward trend, and the number of user downloads, usage time and payment quota has maintained steady growth.
In the view of game industry analyst Zhang Shule, "In 2022, the biggest highlight of the game industry should be the game going to sea." In recent years, in addition to tencent, NetEase and other head game companies have entered overseas, new game companies such as Mihayou, Lilith, and Eagle Point have also achieved excellent results overseas. Sensor Tower store intelligence data shows that in 2021, 8 mobile games in the world have received more than $1 billion in revenue from Apple's App Store and Google Play systems, and the top three revenues are occupied by chinese game companies' mobile game works, namely Tencent's "PUBG" (Chinese localized version of "Peace Elite"), "Glory of kings" and Mihayou's "Original God".
Although overseas markets have high potential, there are obvious differences with Domestic in terms of culture, market environment, and policies and laws. Zhang Shule believes that game companies need to pay attention to the acceptance of the cultural output process when laying out overseas business. One is to effectively combine foreign characteristics to excavate the integration point, the second is to pay attention to the gradual process of cultural closeness, and the third is to truly transmit the charm of the East, rather than to cater to the Western perspective to alienate their own cultural heritage. At the same time, game development also needs to pay attention to the "card neck" problem. He pointed out that whether domestic game manufacturers can establish their own unique game engines as soon as possible and the effect is not weaker than "unreal" may be one of the biggest issues and challenges in the domestic game industry in the next stage.
Liao Xuhua believes that compliance is the most important place for game companies to go to sea: "At present, the most important thing to do is compliance, whether it is domestic or local compliance, the larger the company needs to invest more costs to do, especially privacy compliance and tax compliance." ”
The first year of esports is coming?
"We are champions!" On November 7, 2021, the Chinese team EDG won the championship, making e-sports "break the circle" again. The "Report" shows that in 2021, with the "e-sports into Asia", EDG championship and other events 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. With the opportunity of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, e-sports is expected to usher in an outbreak in 2022.
Sun Shoushan, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association, proposed that it is necessary to accelerate the urbanization of e-sports teams, take the event as the core, combine the composite scenes of teams, venues and parks, stimulate e-sports employment and consumption, and create a new engine for local economic growth. At the same time, all localities are encouraged to introduce e-sports industry promotion policies, gather industrial element resources, improve the ecological layout, and create urban e-sports business cards. Galaxy Securities predicts that with the increasing standardization of the e-sports industry, the promotion of emerging technologies, the support of national policies, and the healthy development of the e-sports ecosystem, the scale of the e-sports market will continue to rise steadily in the future.
But how to seize the opportunity is still a problem that e-sports companies need to think about. Previously, EDG coach Abu had revealed that "at present, EDG is the only money-making club in the league", and the road to commercial exploration of e-sports companies is long. Zhang Shule told reporters that e-sports clubs are currently ushering in opportunities for rapid development, but at present, it is only an opportunity, and its overall profit scenario, club influence and the attention of various events have not really broken the circle and unfolded. Taking the opportunity of e-sports to enter Asia, its commercialization process can learn from ball clubs, and may even refer to the listing model of foreign e-sports clubs to obtain more financial support and performance performance.
In 2022, challenges and opportunities coexist. We expect game companies to strive for innovation and continuous breakthroughs while taking the road of compliance.
Producer: Xie Yanxia
Planner: Xie Jiangtao Gao Chunming
Coordinator: Lu Ruoqing
Lead Writer: Zhang Jieying