The "mobile game factory" SE financial report said that the mobile game department performed poorly. Adding to the Penguin Empire, Tencent acquired Canadian game studio Inflexion Games. The domestic game industry is turbulent, and many companies are laying off employees and cutting projects.
"Mobile game factory" also has today! SE said the mobile games division was underperforming
SE recently released its financial results briefing for the third quarter of the fiscal year. This includes a Q&A session. In this section, Square Enix reveals that its mobile gaming division is underperforming. In order to solve this problem, the company plans to increase internal development efforts.
The earnings report shows that SE mainly outsources the development of its mobile games. In addition, while the company released several new games in the third quarter, SE said most of those games didn't meet initial expectations, but there was no mention of specific games in the earnings report.
However, despite the underperformance of the mobile division and falling short of some expectations, the SE said it would continue to release mobile games, in addition to plans to release new games in the fourth quarter. Despite the poor performance, net sales in its mobile division increased due to changes in accounting policies. The briefing also revealed that while existing games are not performing as expected, sales of these games rose in January 2022.
In addition to its mobile division, SE has said it intends to launch multiple games in the fourth quarter of the (fiscal year), with briefs listing Triangle Strategy and Strangers in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins. In addition, although Final Fantasy XIV previously stopped selling due to server congestion, SE believes the game will generate "a certain" revenue in the fourth quarter.
In February 2021, SE said in a previous report that MMORPG had contributed considerably to its strong results in the third quarter of the fiscal year.
The Penguin Empire Expands Again! Tencent acquires Infoexion Games
Tencent announced that it will acquire Canadian-based game studio Infant Games in a wholly-owned manner.
The name Inflexion Games may be unfamiliar to most players, and its parent company, Improbable, is not a long-established one. Improbable was first developed to develop various character operations in the 3D environment, and later began to develop towards "cross-world" technology, which belongs to the lower technical aspects of the game.
At the moment, Improbable is focusing on the metaverse. It said in a statement that it accepted Tencent's acquisition because Inflexion Games needed better publisher support.
As a start-up team, Inflexion Games' first game, Nightingale, first announced at the 2021 TGA Awards, is a teamwork sandbox-building game that is expected to enter early access in 2022.
In addition, the company also said that after the acquisition of Tencent, the CEO of Inflexion Games will remain in office.
Domestic game industry turmoil A number of companies cut off projects
Recently, a news that "the entire Shanghai game industry is laying off employees" has been circulating on the Internet, and some people have said that lilith has closed one of its game projects because of card version numbers and other reasons.
According to the Red Star Capital Bureau, netease, Lilith, IGG and other well-known game companies seem to have cut off self-developed projects or layoffs, and Lilith game insiders also confirmed to it that Lilith did cut the two-dimensional game project "Eden Apocalypse", and the internal transfer of project employees may be related to the version number.
In addition, another insider from NetEase Games said that as early as last August (the last release of the version number was in July), NetEase Games suspended some of the research projects. The project teams in Hangzhou and Guangzhou are involved, most of the employees are transferred to other project groups, and a small number of employees choose to jump jobs or leave. "The company made an overall assessment of these projects and chose to stop losses in time."
In addition, IGG Games' internal employees also confirmed the news of its layoffs: "The departments in Shanghai and Fuzhou have laid off some people, and the projects that go to sea have not been affected", "The layoffs in the current game circle are normal". NetEase, Lilith, IGG insiders all said that in the future, overseas business will be the main development direction of domestic game companies.
It is worth mentioning that in January this year, another large game company, Perfect World, disclosed in the announcement: "In 2021, the company will streamline and optimize the game team, and adjust some teams that do not match the company's future direction and tone." Hundreds of people have been optimized in the fourth quarter of last year," said the optimization continued.
The report also pointed out that the industry includes Perfect World, TapTap parent company Heartbeat Network, Baidu and other companies have similar situations.
The inquiry found that the Last Time the State Press and Publication Administration approved the list of games was published on July 22, 2021, and then for some reasons, there have been voices saying that they will implement stricter new regulations on version numbers, but Manufacturers such as NetEase have already debunked the rumors.