As a former practitioner of the game industry, and now an observer of the game industry, the issue of the version number has a long history, and when the TBC was delayed in opening that year, as the first generation of World of Warcraft players, they had already tasted the buff of the version number.
More than 10 years ago, as a WSVG player, participating in the World of Warcraft Arena 3V3 project, at that time, there was no TBC in China, only the world of Warcraft version of the coriander era, so for our team that successfully registered at that time, we could only make up for it by watching the videos of overseas players. The result is also no suspense, the improvised combination of mages, warlocks, and shamans, after defeating the players who also lack support for the new version in China, encounters the European champion team Fnatic being abused by GG.
Nine Cities, as the agent of World of Warcraft, and NetEase behind, after going through WLK and CTM, gradually learned to synchronize with supervision, making the subsequent versions of Warcraft as globally synchronized as possible. And the nine cities after missing the World of Warcraft, the stock price is also as shown in the figure, it can be said that it is a magic beast, and the defeat is also a magic beast. NetEase, on the other hand, has long won the warcraft that in the eyes of some industry leaders at that time, "the agency conditions are extremely harsh and the profit margin is low", and through the synergy effect with Blizzard (somewhat similar to Apple's transformation of suppliers), it has become the second pole of the domestic game industry.
...... Here we skip the love-hate and addiction wars of the profession...
Since more than 10 years ago, the version number has become the focus of attention of some enterprises and players, but due to the rapid growth of the game industry and the growth relay brought by the mobile Internet, which has reduced the weight of attention in the capital market. It was not until the two debuffs in 18 and 20 years that the weighting impact of the policy on stock prices gradually increased, and it received more attention.
Does the version number really matter? Referring to the previous inference of a science fiction open world mobile game: "short-term influence is underestimated, long-term influence is overestimated", I think the version number is "short-term influence is overestimated, long-term influence is underestimated." ”
The version number is a stepping stone to the domestic player market, but it is more important to pay attention to the world behind the door than to pay attention to the act of knocking on the door.
13 years began to study the general meeting, and gradually figured out a question: why domestic game companies to the United States to go public, can only give 10 times PE, and the United States EA Blizzard can give 25+, then the domestic companies are not significantly underestimated? At the same time, the stock price of Kaito Royale developer DeNA (now the majority shareholder of Nintendo), which has more revenue than COD, was also looked at, and the market was only given 1PB.
Later, it was found that the conclusion was twofold:
Whether the company can continue to provide explosive models, or can only "blind box" pumping explosive models.
Whether the existing game/IP of the enterprise can penetrate the player's longer life cycle.
Some are expensive, some are cheap, very simple.
For example, EA's annual sports series are obviously more deterministic IP than Warcraft and Call of Duty. And the update is also more convenient - almost no need to make new scenes, cater to the mainstream hardware configuration to make the scene more refined, catering to the data needs of related event associations (such as FIFA) to update the player's data, you can press the release once a year.
In this way, the game can use the certainty and life cycle of IP to value, rather than using PE to price in a blind box. This is also a good thing for game companies and for investors.
Therefore, there is no version number, for the old game, especially for the old game with a sense of distress for a long time, it is actually a good thing, on the one hand, there are fewer opponents, on the other hand, the endowment effect is also self-reinforcing. For games that want to be high-quality in the future and export Chinese culture to the inside and outside world, it may not be necessary to need so many versions. If the volume of the version number is released, so that the focus of the market's attention, from the boutique in the door back to the action of the knocker, the cultivation of long-term valuation may not be a good thing. If the edition number is issued in a boutique way, so that the focus of the market's attention remains in those long-term operation games, or pay attention to the brick quality of the knocking brick itself, it may be seen for a longer time.
Of course, now that the version number has been restored, it must be a long-lost strong buff for the industry. However, after the buff, as a former practitioner, I still hope that the industry valuation this time, whether it is a practitioner or an investor, can see farther. For example, in the figure below, DCF can be used here.