Everything is inevitable.
Text/Stream of Light
In an interview two years ago, talking about the competitive pressure in overseas markets, the CEO of a company answered a little surprised Grape Jun. "The occupation of domestic games in the world is an inevitable historical trend and is inevitable." The company has just achieved an annual turnover of nearly 3 billion, almost half of which comes from overseas.
Looking at some products alone, it is not difficult to break through individual overseas markets, but "occupation" is not easy, which means rewriting the rules of the local market. Such doubts made me keep his words in my heart.
It is expected that just two years later, the inflection point that can be called occupation will come. At the end of July 2021, App Annie released the "2021 Mobile Game Overseas Insight Report" on ChinaJoy, which contained a milestone in the overseas market of domestic games: "Chinese game developers have more than 23% of the overseas game market share in the head, becoming the world's first in overseas markets".
In fact, looking back on the past two years, there have been many cases of domestic games doing explosive overseas.
From the products of "Original God", "PUBG", "Awakening of All Nations" and other products that kill the global market, to the games that are tricky and eat through the single market from the angles of "Sparrow Soul" and "High-skilled Hand Group", even Tencent has made the two-dimensional "White Night Aurora" overseas. At the same time, the older generation of SLG and MOBA are still strong, and some products have even developed to the scale of "local national games".
It seems that at the same moment when domestic traffic peaks, competition continues to be high-pressure, and market throughput slows down, domestic games are infiltrating into every overseas market, and trying to grasp the highest voice in the global market, and forcing overseas game companies to deal with the pressure brought by Chinese games.
So where has the fact been? Are the complex and unique rules of different overseas markets being branded on the Chinese market? Do overseas market opportunities coexist with competition?
01 The inflection point of "Overseas First"
Behind the leap to the first place in the proportion of overseas shares is the general trend of the entire domestic product matrix exported overseas.
In the past year, one of the most frequently mentioned words in the industry is going to sea. Almost every CP with a slight scale will try to transform the old project in the direction of going to sea, and incorporate more global considerations into the new project.
At the same time, more and more overseas markets have emerged window of opportunity. For example, the mature market represented by Japan, which is known for its solidification, has begun to be attacked by more and more products, such as the "Blue Files" released by Yostar last year, the "Mobile Legends: Adventure" developed by Mu Hitomi, and the "White Night Aurora" released by Tencent in the second half of the year, all of which broke into the top of the Japanese best-seller list. The situation in South Korea is also very similar to that in Japan.
《Mobile Legends: Adventure》
In addition, the more special product "Original God" put the strategy of "global multi-terminal simultaneous distribution" on the table. This more ambitious strategy must be achieved with challenges and opportunities, but the rewards are also abundant. In fact, under the influence of "Original God", the products that focus on technology and resources will consider either globalization or multi-terminal distribution.
But these superficial trends do not represent a specific market share.
App Annie's report also mentioned that in the first half of 2021, overseas players spent $8 billion on mobile games in China, about 51 billion yuan. In terms of a year, it is almost one-third of the domestic market. Grape Jun learned from the overseas company about the proportion of revenue of domestic companies in different markets.
Among the companies with top 30 annual revenue in the US market, there are 7 domestic manufacturers, but only FunPlus can enter the category of Top 10, and with Activision Blizzard of Top 1, it has opened up an annual revenue gap of more than 1 times. After FunPlus, Tencent, Lilith, Bole Games, IGG, Mihayou, etc., also ranked in the middle and back.
FunPlus旗下《State of Survival》
However, in the US market, the revenue oligarchy of Top 10 products is weak, with Top 20 games accounting for 30% of the local market and Top 10 products accounting for only 20%. Unlike the domestic Top 10 products can take away 40% of the market share, thanks to this, even if it is on the edge of the Top 30, it can have an annual turnover of nearly 1 billion.
In contrast, the Japanese market is relatively oligopolized, and the Top 10 products can seize 30% of the market share. But in the Japanese market, Chinese manufacturers are more dense, Top 30 manufacturers, one-third are Chinese manufacturers, although there is only one NetEase in the Top 10, but the other Chinese manufacturers are basically concentrated in the waist. Considering that the distribution of the Japanese market in the waist is relatively smooth, as long as it enters the category of manufacturers Top 20, the annual revenue can almost reach 900 million.
NetEase "Wilderness Action"
In addition, the South Korean market is very oligopolized, and the Top 10 products can occupy 37% of the total market share. Especially from the perspective of the company's ranking, the annual revenue of the first NCSOFT can reach 2.5 times that of the second NEXON, and the Top 3 manufacturers have almost formed an absolute ruling circle, far ahead of other manufacturers.
However, this also leads to the fact that one-third of the top 30 manufacturers in the Korean market are Also Chinese manufacturers, and manufacturers such as Lilith and 4399 can even be included in the top 5 category, and other Chinese manufacturers are evenly distributed in the Top10 to Top 30.
Finally, in Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and other large-scale regions, head manufacturers can basically achieve annual revenue of more than 600 million, at the same time, there are 6 to 8 Chinese manufacturers in various places to break into the annual revenue ranking Top 30. Similar to the Indian market, although the user increase is more, but hindered by the popularity of hardware, only a few game manufacturers such as Tencent can do high annual revenue in the local area.
From these data, it is not difficult to see that there are several questions about the control of domestic games on overseas markets:
First, although domestic games have reached the first place in overseas revenue, individual products can achieve the head in specific overseas markets, but it is not much that can support the overall share of manufacturers in the local market.
Second, the local market rules are too complicated, and these data do not reflect the specific market play methods of domestic manufacturers, and whether these play methods are effective.
Third, even if the short-term explosion is very high, if it cannot be maintained in the long run, it is difficult to say that it has truly mastered the essence of the overseas market.
Fourth, whether the native competitiveness of the local market is really suppressed, and the impact of Chinese games cannot be resisted.
02 Domestic games really
Occupy the global market?
In the final analysis, the first can be regarded as the result of continuous success, or the probability problem of possible continuous success; the second is the effectiveness of the playing style; the third is the continuity of success; and the fourth is the problem of whether the competitive pattern and the competitive threshold are stable.
To put it simply, the core is actually two points: first, whether the specific strategy/playing style/model is long-term and effective; second, whether it has established Chinese market rules that Chinese manufacturers play smoothly.
For example, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are typical markets that have been completely eaten up by domestic manufacturers.
First of all, the product liquidity in this market is extremely strong, every month there are a large number of new products in it to brush the face, the market throughput ability is very strong; secondly, the market transparency is high, the playing style is very clear, online and offline one-stop information bombardment, is well known Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan playing method; the third success rate is high, know how to operate Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan practitioners are not in the minority, and these experiences are highly reusable, so that as long as you have a seasoned team, you can establish your own distribution line in the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan markets, and push into products.
Status of the Taiwan market
Then from the perspective of the whole and details, it is possible to discuss the classification of several major overseas markets.
The first category is the market that domestic games have conquered, and at present, in addition to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, there are also Japan.
First of all, from the perspective of the product matrix, the Japanese market, whether it is the head, mid-waist, or waist and tail, is surrounded by a considerable number of domestic games. The head is represented by NetEase's "Wilderness Action" and Mihayou's "Original God", the middle waist is represented by the loving "Place Girl" and Youta's "Underworld" as examples, and the waist tail is where many domestic SLGs and domestic secondary elements often show their faces.
Secondly, from a long-term point of view, the above products, in addition to "Original God", are classic games that have dominated the Japanese market for many years, and there is no shortage of cases where "Place Girl" is getting hotther and hotther year by year, and it has slowly climbed to the current level and has remained high.
The trend of "Placing the Girl"
But the most important thing is the way to play, in the view of Grape Jun, the way domestic games are played in Japan is almost crushing the local mobile game industry. In the early years, "Blue Route" was able to reach the top of the Japanese App Store best-seller list, which depended heavily on the turtle speed iteration of the Like game on the Japanese market ship.
And the same mistake, appeared on the track of missing mahjong + two-dimensional, now "Sparrow Soul" has just been on the shelves for less than two years, has been running well, the first wave of Vtuber competition, the second wave of game enterprise competition, have brought this game enough popularity. In contrast, the older generation of Mahjong products in Japan all face the old disease of lack of fresh blood.
Not long ago, the "Sparrow Soul" Japanese company confrontation competition was held
It is worth mentioning that the first two games are operated by the Japanese team of Yostar, and their new work "Turquoise Files" last year is also just right to step on the chinese painting style and human settings, between japanese players and Chinese players XP. In November last year, the growth rate of overseas revenue was second only to "Original God", and although the volume could not be compared with "Original God", it still had good potential.
As for a large domestic star in the Japanese market from the end of the previous year to last year, "Original God" is also very tricky in the Japanese market. During the reservation period, Miha You adopted an eye-catching strategy of throwing money wildly, and frankly said that Grape Jun had never seen any manufacturer in the past draw so many Amazon point cards during the reservation period.
It has been tried and tested, and it is still being used today
On the one hand, this strategy shows that Miha is rich, on the other hand, it also reflects that after the product base reaches a certain threshold, the core purpose of marketing is only to let players "see the product". Issuing point cards is not a new idea, but the difference in usage has undoubtedly brought a lot of potential energy to "HaraJin" in Japan.
The Japanese market is highly transparent and highly solidified, and domestic games and Chinese play are like stimulants to Japanese players, although there have been some controversies, but as a result, they have been pried open and their weaknesses are exposed at a glance. The success of "White Night Aurora" under the promotion of Tencent can be said to confirm that as long as you are willing to delve into the methodology of your predecessors, you can enter the game.
The second category is the market where domestic games have already occupied, such as the United States and South Korea.
As for this kind of market, domestic games have never been truly occupied. The biggest reason is that its local products dominate the head, even if domestic games can appear at the top of the list in a short period of time, most of them will be squeezed down quickly, and it is difficult to stabilize at a high level for a long time. The reason is needless to say, the United States has "Roblox" and many casual games, South Korea has 3N manufacturers and major MMO IP products.
But even in such a market, domestic games still do everything possible to blossom at the waist and tail, and cyclically have an impact on the head of the local market. For example, within the TOP 20 of the US best-seller list, only a few Chinese games that can be stabilized are "Original God" and "Call of Duty Mobile Game", and new products can squeeze in, but they cannot be stabilized.
Another example is the Korean market, the best-selling list Top 5 is the Korean MMO IP that cannot be moved, and after them, it is the central and tail products that float frequently, and the new products can almost all appear in the middle, but only a few products can advance into the Top 5 for a long time, and most of the rest are just a flash in the pan.
However, in these markets, the unique playing style of domestic products is also gradually forming, and it has begun to release influence to players. Compared with the US market, the changes in South Korea are more obvious. For example, last year, Station B successively issued two new products in South Korea, "Heavy Armor Battle Ji" and "High-skilled Hand Group", which have two characteristics behind them, one is to borrow the potential energy of the local two-dimensional group, and the other is to borrow the publicity strategy used by Station B in China (anchor, Coser, custom events). As a result, the Korean market was caught off guard.
A promotional video shot of "High-Skilled Hand-run Group"
It is foreseeable that this kind of methodological style of play is likely to repeat the past market trend in China, and before the freshness of local players fades, there will be more domestic games in the Korean market that hit the top of the list.
The third category is the potential stock market, the most representative of which is India, Southeast Asia and other places.
This type of market is characterized by sinking, and players are more susceptible to the influence of global fashion trends, but due to hardware conditions and the limitations of the environment, it is difficult to require players to follow the technology of game manufacturers, so providing a "play environment that meets the player's game requirements" is fundamental.
In addition, if on this basis, players are given a high-quality game atmosphere experience, then for them, the first game they play may become the favorite game of their life. Therefore, whoever grabs the user first forms a preconceived impression, who is likely to grasp an entire market.
Therefore, we can see that the balance between Mu Hitomi and Tencent in the field of MOBA has also formed a fragmented format in Southeast Asia, and their respective products occupy different countries, and all have the popularity or identity of national games. Once promoted to the national level, the e-sports team behind them can rely on sufficient resources and rich experience to form a truly national-level influence.
Tencent AoV's event scene
The last category is emerging markets such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, etc.
This type of market is about the same size as the potential stock market, but due to the high level of education of the player, it is difficult to reuse the methodology used in the potential stock market. However, due to the small local production capacity, it is essentially more vulnerable to other countries' products, so it is more necessary to focus on these markets.
As for other markets, they are not discussed in this way because they are not large enough. However, after analyzing several typical models, it is not difficult to see that in several major overseas markets, there are not many areas where domestic games really have market discourse power, and it is still relatively early to talk about occupation, but the posture of being ready to go is fully prepared.
In other words, 23% of the market share is only the clarion call of the domestic game charge, and after more products enter the market with the right product + methodology, the share of domestic games overseas will continue to expand.
03 Will the opportunities continue to expand?
To this question, I would like to put a question mark first.
Take the Japanese market with the highest degree of domestic games for example, although there is the impact of "Original God" in 2020, the Japanese market in 2021 still came up with heavyweight products such as "Horse Racing Lady" and "Neil Mobile Game", which is refreshing. In particular, the former's dominance in the Japanese market can be said to be unshakable for a long time to come, and even "Hara God" will hardly have a substantial impact on it.
Nine times out of ten in life, it is sent
The reason is needless to say, this product is almost tailor-made for Japanese players, it relies not only on the effect of technology and art, but also on the sophisticated way of designing these things, and what Japanese players want, or Japanese practitioners know better. But too much customization also makes it difficult for "Horse Racing Lady" to be eaten in the international market, which is a pro and con.
However, even with the competition of "Horse Racing Lady", domestic games still have great opportunities, because we are too far ahead in the "production capacity of new products". "Original God" to do the open world took 4 years to go online, "Magic Tower" did subtraction, the research and development cycle was controlled in 2 years, and when elected to customize different products with different ideas and entry angles, even if it is a super large product, its research and development cycle may continue to shorten.
Especially now that the head manufacturers are collectively rushing to the trend of industrialization and open world, the talent structure and production mode of the industry itself will be passively changed, which is also the evolutionary speed that is difficult for overseas markets to keep up with in the short term.
Nowadays, globalization is a compulsory course for domestic games, just like the rise of Netflix, global distribution for products, in the long run, must be far more beneficial than harmful. Once the trend of going overseas is followed, more high-quality domestic games take root overseas, and their overall impression will be more long-term. At this time, "domestic games occupy the global market" is also an inevitable result.