Image source @ Visual China
Text | Praying Mantis Observation, author | Tu Lin
A new round of "edition winter" seems to have signs of loosening.
A few days ago, a message about the version number on the Snowball community pointed out that "it is planned to issue a version number in April, and the number is about 30."
However, as soon as the news came out, some people questioned the authenticity of the message because the word "chest less than A" was contrary to the community review rules. Not long after, some people in the game industry stepped forward and said that the news may be "true and false".
Opinions are diverse and inconclusive. Until the game version number is actually reissued, these messages can only be "just listen".
In late February, Hong Kong game concept stocks collectively fell, leaving the game industry tight again. Some industry insiders said that this year, china or will not issue a version number, becoming the biggest bearish in the game industry.
However, the tightening of policies has always had two sides. While closing a door for the domestic game industry, the version number restriction also opens a window for domestic games to go to sea. How to grasp this new outlet and survive may become a more urgent issue for game manufacturers at present.
The version number is limited to the "loop", and the game goes to sea to welcome the "new machine"
Just like the hit drama "Beginning" at the end of last year, the version number restrictions of domestic games have also entered a new round of "cycle".
Before 2016, there was no game version number. At that time, the domestic game market was full of companies that were shoddy and only to make quick money because of no policy restrictions, and the entire market was miasma.
In order to improve this situation, in May 2016, the General Office of the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued the Notice on the Management of Mobile Game Publishing Services. It was officially implemented on July 1 of that year. The circular announces that from the date of implementation, mobile games that have not been approved by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television shall not be published and operated online.
On March 29, 2018, the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued the Notice on Important Matters Concerning the Approval of Game Declarations, saying that due to institutional reform, the progress of game approval work will be affected. In the following 8 months, the approval of the version number was suspended. It didn't return to normal until December of that year.
Since then, the "Domestic Online Game Version Approval Information" has been updated basically every month until August last 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. Like the cold winter of the 2018 edition, after August 2021, the revision of the edition number was once again suspended. As of now, the "Domestic Online Game Version Number Approval Information" has still not been updated.
Adding an additional regulatory threshold is indeed beneficial to regulating the bad atmosphere of the game industry, but at the same time, it also lengthens the profit period of game manufacturers.
Not all companies that are waiting for the approval of the version number are "rich and timey". Games that cost a lot of money in the early stage are difficult to monetize smoothly if they do not wait for approval. In order to prevent greater losses, more companies have to choose to cancel off voluntarily.
Take the first round of winter number winter as an example. According to the data of Tianyancha, from March 29 to the end of the year, there were 8306 game companies in the country that chose to actively cancel. In 2019, this number increased to 15,987.
In the new round of edition winter that has continued since August last year, the first to be affected is still small and medium-sized enterprises. According to Tianyancha data, from July to December 2021, as many as 14,000 small and medium-sized game enterprises with a registered capital of less than 10 million yuan were cancelled one after another.
In desperation, there have also been game companies that have tried to "opportunistically" through version-size operation, version number application operation, etc., and the final result is to receive "sky-high fines". Previously, there was only 100,000 flowing water "Monkey Brother Legend" because of the "no version number" online operation, was fined 700,000.
According to the current predictions of some industry insiders, the approval of the version number of domestic games is still difficult to return to normal in a short period of time. In this context, the game naturally obtained a new round of development opportunities.
In fact, as early as the cold winter of the 2018 edition, there were Chinese companies that tasted the sweetness of going to sea because of the game.
According to App Annie data, the combined revenue of overseas IOS and Google Play released by China Mobile Games increased by more than 40% in the first half of 2018 compared with the same period in 2017.
According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report" released by the "China Game Industry Annual Conference", in the past five years, the mainland game has shown a steady upward trend, and the number of user downloads, usage time and payment amount has maintained steady growth.
After 2018, game manufacturers realized the tightening of the version number and gradually took going to sea as an important part of revenue.
According to the data, in the cold winter of the first round of 2018, the sales revenue of mainland self-developed games in overseas markets was 9.586 billion US dollars. Last year, when the version number was once again restricted, the sales revenue of mainland self-developed games in overseas markets reached 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 88% over 2018.
It is worth mentioning that the national policy is also conducive to the game going to sea.
In October 2021, the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Propaganda Department and 17 other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Support the High-quality Development of National Cultural Export Bases", which mentioned that it is necessary to "promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture" and "encourage excellent traditional cultural products, cultural and creative products and digital cultural products such as film and television dramas and games to 'go global'." ”
Newzoo estimates that the overall size of the global game market in 2021 is about 175.8 billion US dollars, the overall size of the domestic game market is about 296.5 billion yuan in the same period, and the overall size of the overseas game market is more than 3 times that of the domestic market.
Some institutions predict that the potential scale of domestic game going to sea in 2024 will reach 69.1 billion US dollars, which will reach 4.5 times the scale of game going to sea in 2020.
Under the dual benefits of the stable development of the industry and the support of national policies, the game has undoubtedly stood on a new development cusp.
It is easy to wait for the wind to come, and it is difficult to face the wind
In the face of a new round of cold winter, the game is bound to become the choice of more game manufacturers. So, under the new wind, will it be easier for the game to go to sea?
In the view of Mantis Observation, it may not be the case.
If the game wants to succeed, the most critical point is to "adapt to local conditions", that is, to complete the localization of the game.
Games that are popular in the domestic market may not be the case overseas. The difference in game population preference brought about by regional differences is something that game manufacturers must take into account.
Taking Tencent's overseas version of King of Glory as an example, considering that overseas players may not be familiar with the historical figures of the mainland, in the overseas version, Tencent deliberately added heroes including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. to take care of the cultural differences of overseas players.
But the more realistic problem is that localization of games is not easy. For game manufacturers, localization in the absolute sense needs to take into account the distribution, resources and content, which is a time-consuming, labor-intensive and cost-consuming "long-term project".
Take Tencent's first two-dimensional product "White Night Aurora" in 2021 as an example. According to its leader, more than 50% of the members of the game's "publishing and operation" team have japanese work and life experience, or have rich experience in two-dimensional games.
In order to be able to obtain japan's local high-quality resources in the first place, Tencent has set up a resource acquisition team in Japan. Moreover, more than 50% of the important contents of "White Night Aurora" are produced locally in Japan.
For well-funded game manufacturers, this is easy. But for more small and medium-sized game manufacturers, the high cost of cross-border development makes this kind of "immersive development" like a "fantasy".
Therefore, it is not difficult to find that the game manufacturers that can successfully go to sea at this stage are basically familiar with us and have mature experience.
At present, the first echelon of China is undoubtedly Still Tencent and NetEase. In the list of the top 52 global publishers in 2021 released by App Annie, Tencent and NetEase ranked first and second respectively. The former, with PUBG Mobile and Clash of Clans, and the latter, with Operation Wilderness and After Tomorrow, are gradually consolidating their position in the overseas game market.
The representative players of the second echelon are Mihayou and ByteDance. Although they are late in their efforts, they are growing rapidly.
Mihayou's "Original God", which topped the best-seller list in 43 countries and regions, is one of the most discussed games on Twitter in 2021. ByteDance's "Endless Showdown" of Mu Hitomi Technology is also an overseas "big hit". Sensor Tower ranked 13th in the Top 30 Chinese Mobile Game Revenue Top 30 in December 2020.
Of course, this does not mean that other manufacturers have no chance. Small and medium-sized manufacturers "ship small good turn" can directly face overseas projects. Moreover, the hyper-casual games that are highly sought after in the European and American markets have actually low technical requirements.
Recently, the ultra-casual game "ABC Runner" owned by Chinese manufacturer JoyPac has topped the us iOS free list.
Previously, the game studios under touchpal, a domestic overseas company, have also attracted much attention for ultra-casual games.
After being listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018, TouchPal focused its energy on the content ecology based on mobile games, online texts and scenario-based content. In the past two years, TouchPal has invested in a number of game studios including Smillage, Taptek, Dolly Studios and Brown Cafe Studios.
In May last year, Smillage launched "Catwalk Beauty", which successfully topped the App Store and Google Play game lists in 66 countries and regions including the United States. The data shows that in the first 3 months, the game contributed nearly $3 million in gross profit to TouchPal, with an overall return on investment of more than 200%.
In the third quarter that followed, Taptek continued the parkour gameplay and style of Catwalk Beauty to launch "Truth Runner", and topped the list of AMERICAN IOS games within a week of launch. At the end of 2021, the game iOS version of the product "Hotties Up" released by Smillge was launched for 12 days, and it also won the Top3 in the AppStore US game free list.
This not only confirms that according to the preferences of game populations in different countries, it is conducive to improving the success rate of games going to sea. It also means that small and medium-sized manufacturers still have the opportunity to break through in the game at sea.
It is worth mentioning that the US market that JoyPac and TouchPal "bet" on is becoming the largest overseas market for Chinese mobile games.
According to Sensor Tower's "2021 Annual Inventory of Chinese Mobile Games Abroad", 42 mobile games received more than $100 million in revenue in overseas markets last year. Among them, the US market contributed $3.6 billion to China's overseas mobile game TOP30, an increase of 53% over 2020, which also made the United States officially replace Japan as the largest overseas market for Chinese mobile games.
To be sure, no one can predict when this edition will end. If it continues, the game industry is likely to usher in a new round of reshuffle. For game manufacturers, how to stabilize the market position and avoid elimination will be the most urgent thing next.
As a result, even the big game manufacturers with the advantage of going to sea have accelerated the layout of overseas business because of the emergence of the cold winter of the second edition.
The business leader of The Heartbeat Company has previously mentioned that this year's tapap community and game projects will invest more resources overseas; NetEase CEO Ding Lei also said after the 2021 annual financial report that the company has been exploring overseas markets and producer investment, and will accelerate the global digital culture layout in the future, and continue to expand the influence of "Chinese style" culture.
In general, the game goes to sea, although the new outlet has arrived, but the pressure on game manufacturers is still not small. Who can really rise to the wind, can only wait and see.
Resources:
1. "The Growth Road of Chinese Games Going to sea under the New Normal: Cross-border, Continuous Cross-border" - Qian Dehu
2. "Let some games go to sea first" - six nine trumpets
3. "Going out to sea games to the top of the U.S. iOS free list, where is the ultra-casual game going in 2021" - Moby Dick goes to sea