Produced | Tiger Sniff Commercial, Consumer and Mobile Group
The author | Huang Qingchun
The title image | Visual China
Since the afternoon of yesterday (April 11), the news of the resumption of the game version number has been in the game circle, waiting until the National Press and Publication Administration (hereinafter referred to as the Version Office) website is updated (8 pm), # Game version number #一度蹿升至微博热搜榜二的位置.
The reason why it is hotly discussed is that: on the one hand, this is the resumption of domestic game version issuance after 263 days (since the release of the version number was stopped on July 22, 2021), which is a long-awaited good news for game manufacturers, investors and players.
On the other hand, although the game industry has been suspended once in 2018, at the moment when the market economy is declining and the environment has changed suddenly, the new version number is more precious to game manufacturers - which may also mean that the tight curse that has bound the game industry for eight months has been "loosened".
To this end, some analysts believe that "as long as the version number policy is normalized and predictable, game stocks or will usher in the inflection point of medium and long-term allocation, more importantly, capital will refocus on the game industry is conducive to plate valuation repair, so continue to be optimistic about the next game stock market performance." ”
The version number is "unfreezed", and the game is "untied"?
Tiger Sniff has studied the latest 45 versions and found that most of them are mainly light games and there is no shortage of products from well-known manufacturers.
For example, 37 Interactive Entertainment's "Dream Voyage", the heart's "Party Star", Xishanju's "Sword Net 3 Origins", Lilith's "Life Party", Youzu's "Three Kingdoms Chronicles: Pocket Battle" and so on.
Source / Draft: Game Grapes
In this regard, some senior gamers said that the quality of the latest reviewed game version number is good, "glanced at it, the reviewed version of the "CastEr", "Mirror of Shimmer", "Pottery Master", "Sandstone Town Time" is worth paying attention to, and "Box Fission", "Super Phantom Cat: Island", "Party Star" is an independent game under the commercial company, worth playing. ”
Of course, some players said that there are few games that can be played in the 45 games issued by the Copyright Administration, "You judge yours, I play mine, there is no intersection." ”
In fact, the debate about specific games is not so important, in the words of industry insiders, "what games that have been reviewed are not so important, what is important is to start the review, which will make the primary market and the secondary market perceive the good signal of the game industry's 'loosening'." ”
In this regard, the relevant person in charge of the heartbeat network told the 21 reporter, "In the first half of last year, "Party Star" has entered the review process, and before the release of the version number was suspended in July last year, the game has feedback many rounds of opinions, so the company is expected that once the version number is restored, "Party Star" can get the version number. ”
In terms of quantity, the number of the latest reviewed version numbers is 45, which is more than half of the average number of reviewed versions in the month before the cessation of issuance in July 2021; according to GameLook statistics, compared with the 1405 game version numbers issued in 2020, the total number of version numbers in 2021 decreased by 46.26%, almost "discounted", and the total number of version numbers has decreased for four consecutive years since 2018.
Market speculation may stem from two considerations:
First, the Copyright Administration has increased the issuance of high-quality products in the approval standards, and the supervision of the game industry will be more stringent;
Second, although the approval of the version number is resumed, it will take some time to return to the normal approval speed.
In fact, as early as August 2021, Yang Fang, deputy director of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, delivered a speech in ChinaJoy that conveyed two signals: first, the game industry should further enhance the awareness of quality; second, anti-addiction should be regarded as the top priority.
In view of this, the issue of anti-addiction in the second half of 2021 was raised to an unprecedented degree of attention - on June 1 of the same year, the revised "Law on the Protection of Minors" was implemented, which stipulated in the form of legislation that real-name authentication is a necessary prerequisite for minors to enter the game; in August, the Copyright Administration issued the "Notice on Further Strict Management to Effectively Prevent Minors from Addicting to Online Games", and the supervision vigorously promoted the construction of game companies for the protection of minors and the construction of game anti-addiction, which undoubtedly made game manufacturers walk on thin ice. After all, the new anti-addiction regulations have become an absolute red line for the life and death of a game.
Previously, some game people speculated that the approval of the version office was suspended, "perhaps in the follow-up of the protection of minors, game anti-addiction and other more detailed new documents introduced, that the game manufacturer's version number approval rules will also make corresponding adjustments"; another practitioner believes that after the strong promotion of the game real name system, many games should redo the verification system and re-examine the version number, which may be one of the reasons why the State Press and Publication Administration has suspended the issuance of the new game version number.
Compared with the two editions of "freezing" in 2018 and 2021, it is not difficult to find that since then, the regulators have successively issued relevant documents to regulate the development of the game industry, and it can be clearly perceived in the continuation of the policy that the Copyright Administration is trying to force the industry to be boutique through total quantity control, and is continuing to increase the protection of minors.
Nowadays, new regulations have been implemented, game manufacturers have launched real-name authentication systems in turn, and supervision has been conveying positive signals related to version numbers since March. For example, snowball user @Battle Sword Tea Ke said as early as late March that the game version number is undergoing a slow "loosening" process:
First of all, the Game Working Committee of the China Music and Digital Association demanded in the "2021 China Game Industry Report" that game companies should increase the intensity of high-quality games going to sea and tell the "Chinese story" well - which is equivalent to saying that game going to sea and cultural export is a new direction for policy efforts.
Secondly, the financial commission meeting held on March 16 released a signal to the market that the game industry was "loosened", so there was a rise and fall of game platform companies such as 37 Interactive Entertainment, Perfect World, and Gigabit on March 17, indicating that the market was speculating on expectations.
The market is picking up, Tencent is back to blood?
In fact, after the game version number was "frozen" on July 22, 2021, the game industry can be described as "overnight winter".
You know, the game version number is not an application will be issued, there is a waiting period of several months or even a year in the middle, now the State Press and Publication Administration has suspended the issuance of the game version number, the game manufacturer can rely on abundant funds to support the revenue of the previously launched game, but for small manufacturers, independent gamers, the version number is delayed, the team and the game may be "consumed" and forced to disband - after all, the version number for the game manufacturer is the foundation of the body, not only will limit its future imagination space, And it will repeatedly compress its market bargaining power at this stage.
In view of this, after the release of the version number, every month there will be a variety of gossip on the social platform, even if the details of the version of the rumor are not the same, but the core content is swinging on whether the new game version will be released in 2022, and most of them are pessimistic.
Even, with the pessimism pervading, many game practitioners are already seeking to change careers - Tianyancha data shows that from July to December 2021 alone, 14,000 small and medium-sized game companies with a registered capital of less than 10 million were written off.
At the same time, due to the double suppression of the suspension of game numbers and strict supervision of juvenile protection, the stock prices of game listed companies are collectively weak and the valuation of the game sector is at a low level for many years - after all, when policy uncertainty continues to have an impact on the industry, any voice of decline will make the capital that likes games feel the crisis, which will trigger a chain reaction, and game concept stocks will begin to step on the collective decline.
This also reflects that the research of institutions and investors on national policies is far from enough, the research on the judgment of policy wind direction is far from enough, and capital and institutions have become "blind" because of the lack of more macro insight.
Focusing on business operations, the impact of the suspension of the version number is very direct: large and small game manufacturers can only "save themselves" by cutting projects and laying off employees, and Tencent, Heartbeat, B Station, and Perfect World have all had rumors of layoffs.
Its reaction to the game company's purchase data is also very intuitive: the hot cloud data released the "2022 Q1 mobile game purchase report" pointed out that in the first quarter of 2022, the mobile game purchase market was weak, and the mobile game products launched from January to March were more than 6200 monthly compared with the same period last year, down nearly 20% year-on-year, and the number of apps was also reduced by nearly 1500.
Until April 11, the latest batch of game version numbers was issued by the Copyright Administration, and many gamers were happy like the New Year. For example, Huang Yimeng, CEO of Heartbeat, was the first to express his inner surging with "tears and joy" on social platforms.
Heartbeat CEO Huang Yimeng released the dynamics
On the other hand, the industry believes that the resumption of version number issuance is more beneficial to head game manufacturers such as Tencent.
Originally, the clearance of the supply-side game version number will further increase the market concentration of head players; however, since the freeze of the game version number in July 2021, the impact of the policy on the share price weight of the game company is becoming more and more important, especially tencent is under the dual clamp of anti-monopoly and strict game supervision, and the stock price continues to fluctuate and fall.
Nowadays, although there is no Tencent game in the list of the latest reviewed version number of the Copyright Administration, an industry insider told Tiger Sniff, "The small manufacturer version number is released, tencent is only a matter of time; compared with the opening of the version number in 2018, the first list is also dominated by the version number of small and medium-sized game manufacturers." The industry insider also said, "With the normalization and predictability of the issuance of the version number, many games squeezed by Tencent will be released." ”
Previously, analysts at Guojin Securities told the "Securities Star" reporter, "After the recovery of the game version number, the trend of the game industry to the head and to the boutique will not change." The companies most likely to benefit: one is the company with its own traffic, or through cooperation with Tencent to obtain traffic; the other is the company with high-quality IP and self-research strength, and the product accumulation is relatively strong. ”
The revelers are not only the game circle, the version number is restored and issued has also led the "believers" of the meta-universe to rush to tell each other.
An investor who studies the metaverse told Tiger Sniff, "The release of the game version number on the one hand can boost the game industry, on the other hand, it is also good for the application of metaversmic technology and the landing of scenarios - after all, games are the closest entertainment form to the metacosm at this stage." ”
As Microsoft CEO Nadella once said in a statement, "Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting area of entertainment for all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms." ”
In this regard, the Securities Times quoted analysts as saying, "In the long run, the metacosm is expected to become the next generation of media forms beyond the Internet, games will become the key content entrance of the metacosm, and the metacosm will reconstruct the production and valuation system of the game, bringing new imagination space to the game industry." ”