What is the reason? This year, a number of well-known games have been suspended, involving Tencent, NetEase and other major manufacturers

(Source: Figureworm Creative)

In February this year, the game "My Origin" issued by Tencent announced that due to the imminent expiration of the agency agreement between Tencent and the developer of "My Origin", Tencent will officially stop the operation of "My Origin" in Chinese mainland at 11:00 on April 25, 2022 after friendly consultation with the developer.

The day after the announcement of the suspension, Tencent's other game "Cloud Dress Feather" also issued a suspension announcement, announcing that it would officially stop game operations from April 28, which made the list of game products that were suspended in China this year extended again.

Several well-known games were out of service

According to the data, "My Origin" is a sandbox evolution MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) mobile game developed by Perfect World and represented by Tencent. The game began undeleted public beta in November 2019, and was announced to be out of service in February this year, and has only been in operation for more than 2 years.

In the announcement, Tencent said the reason for the suspension was the expiration of its agency agreement with the developer and provided compensatory activities for gamers.

The day after "My Origin" announced the suspension, Tencent's other high-profile game "Cloud Dress Feather" announced that it would stop game recharge and new user registration, and would be suspended in April. The reason for the suspension was also the expiry of an agency agreement with the game developer.

"Cloud Dress Feather" is a 3D love dressup mobile game, developed by Xishanju, released by Tencent, and launched in June 2018. In the bulletin board of the official website of "Cloud Dress Feather", the latest announcement of the suspension of operation follows the announcement of the non-deletion test released in June 2018.

Statistics from the Securities Times E Company found that since the beginning of this year, more than 10 well-known games have been suspended, involving Tencent, NetEase, Kingsoft World Tour, B Station and many other companies.

For example, on February 21, Kingsoft World Travel Agency's 2D turn-based mobile game "Final Fantasy: Courage Apocalypse" announced that it would stop recharging and new user registration on March 1, and officially stop operating on April 29. The game opened its undeleted beta in March 2019.

NetEase's mobile game "Magic Book Revelation" previously announced that due to the adjustment of the game developer's operation strategy, it intends to terminate the operation of the game on February 14, 2022. From launch to operation, the game only survived for about 1 year.

Station B's game "Mecha Alice" announced in February this year that due to various reasons, after friendly consultation with the copyright owner, it was decided to stop operating from 11 o'clock on April 21 this year. The game went live on April 22, 2021, only one year after it was out of service.

Insiders: The game itself is a problem

Game manufacturers generally operate a large number of game products at the same time, in the industry, game products outages are not uncommon, and with market changes and industry competition intensified, game outages have an accelerating trend.

According to statistics, in 2021 alone, the total number of game products that head game manufacturers have stopped operating is how many dozens. Among them, Tencent alone has "QQ Tang", "Rhythm Master", "Fortnite", "Dragon Valley Mobile Game" and many other well-known products out of service.

Except for Fortnite, which is in the testing stage, which was stopped testing due to the version number and other factors, the shutdown of other games was mostly due to market performance.

Industry insiders told the Securities Times e company reporter that on the one hand, some game products are not recognized by the market after they are launched, the data performance is not good, or they begin to perform well, but the follow-up obvious decline may be eliminated; on the other hand, the game itself has a certain life cycle, after a period of operation, the company needs to put energy into new products, and old products will face elimination.

"Manufacturers generally extend the life cycle of game products through improvements, upgrades and iterations, but the effects of various measures are different, and as the attractiveness of the game to players decreases, players may still lose a lot." Under normal circumstances, if the operating income of a game cannot offset the cost, the manufacturer may choose to stop the operation of the game, and the big manufacturer will have higher requirements for whether to continue to operate. The above-mentioned person said.

For the game of many players such as "Cloud Dress Feather", li Lei (pseudonym), a game practitioner, said that it is mainly the problem of the game itself.

"The target of YunSheng Haoyi was the "Miracle Warmth" of the paper-folding game before, this game used to be popular for a while, but then it didn't work, and the operation could not go on and could only be shut down, which is very normal." Li Lei said.

It is worth mentioning that the sudden suspension of game products of large manufacturers has also brought a lot of impact to players. In particular, some games that still have a certain player size are out of service, which has caused dissatisfaction among old players.

Recently, the two games "Cloud Dress Feather" and "My Origin" were discontinued, which triggered complaints from players. Some players said that they recharged more in the game, and the game did not issue any notice before the suspension, nor did they discuss with the players, and even shortly before the suspension, they also launched related activities in the game, and the sudden suspension made it difficult for them to accept.

"Small and medium-sized manufacturers are fine, large manufacturers are not refundable, just give other games a gift package, to other games to import users." The suspension itself is because the revenue cannot cover the cost, and the big factory cannot keep the server open because a small number of players ask to keep the virtual items and data in the game. Li Lei said.

Extending the life cycle is a common choice

For game manufacturers, continuing to launch high-quality games is the key to their competitiveness.

However, in recent years, the competition in the domestic mobile game market has been intensifying, capital and technical barriers are constantly improving, and the version number policy has continued to tighten, the "trial and error" opportunities of game manufacturers have decreased, and the investment and risk of product research and development have been greater.

Because of this, at present, in addition to increasing investment in new product development, major game manufacturers have generally strengthened the operation and renewal of existing products and tapped the potential of existing products.

For example, 37 Interactive Entertainment said that the demand side of players for games is rigid, and the life cycle of existing games will be extended to a certain extent. When new products continue to appear in the market, players may choose new games to try due to the impact of the game life cycle; but when there are fewer new products on the market, players will continue to choose high-quality games that have been launched to try, rather than no longer play games, from this level, it will promote the life cycle of the original online products to be longer than the normal life cycle.

37 Interactive Entertainment said that the company will increase the proportion of long-term products, the company's current proportion of long-life cycle categories of products is much higher than in previous years, the life cycle of existing products has been greatly extended compared with before, the company will continue to strengthen operational capabilities in the future, as far as possible to extend the life cycle of products.

Youzu Network said that the company adheres to the idea of long-term operation of the original game, pays attention to the interaction with players, actively listens to the voices from players, continuously optimizes the product and updates the game version according to player feedback, so that the game life cycle is further extended.

Public data shows that the average life cycle of mobile game products is only 6 to 12 months, but the life cycle of high-quality products is significantly longer.

The most significant ones, such as "Glory of Kings", have been operating for more than 6 years since its release in 2015, and its turnover is still at a high level, and the seven-wheat data monitoring shows that the download volume of "Glory of Kings" continues to rank among the top three game products.

(Editor-in-charge: Zhang Qianye)

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