After 263 days of waiting, the results finally came to fruition.
Just last night, the official website of the State Press and Publication Administration updated a "domestic online game approval information". This also means that 263 days since July 22 last year, the game version number has finally resumed distribution.
At this moment, "tears and joy" should be the common feeling of all companies that get the version number.
Even if the first batch of open editions is only 45, and there are still long queues and complex censorship rules ahead, it is difficult to hide the excitement of the long-suppressed game industry just by receiving a signal of policy relaxation.
However, this positive stimulus did not last long.
In the morning, dragged down by the market, game companies such as Gigabit, Perfect World, and Kaiying Network have opened and fallen back, and game ETFs have also once come out of the shape of a word.
Source: Choice
Are we happy too soon?
01
Warmer
Looking back at 2021, the entire game industry, the sword and the wind and frost are strict.
Since August, regulatory policies have been intensively introduced.
On August 30, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the Notice on Further Strict Management and Effectively Preventing Minors from Addicting to Online Games, which clearly stipulates that all online game enterprises can only provide 1 hour of service to minors from 20:00 to 21:00 on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays.
On the evening of September 8, the relevant responsible persons of the Central Propaganda Department and the State Press and Publication Administration, together with the Central Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other departments, interviewed key online game companies such as Tencent and NetEase, as well as game live broadcasting platforms and game account rental and sales platforms.
……
Coupled with the suspension of approval of the game version number, the whole industry has fallen into the dilemma of making it difficult for smart women to cook without rice.
The suspension of approval means that newly developed game products cannot be listed. R&D expenses are trivial, and more importantly, it is difficult for companies to maintain performance growth without the launch of new products.
The stock speculation is expected and growth, the performance can not grow, naturally will be abandoned by capital.
Previously, due to the long-term unknown release date of the version number, coupled with the cooling of the metaverse concept this year, the market sentiment is more pessimistic, and the entire game sector has been in a state of valuation suppression, including Perfect World, Gigabit, and 37 Interactive Entertainment, pe as a whole is between 15-20 times, which is the bottom position in history.
Now that the version number is restarted, both the valuation of the plate and the performance of manufacturers will usher in a period of repair. Whether from the policy or fundamental level, it has also entered the value range.
Of course, the future is not easy to assert, and we can only look for answers from history.
Review the last version restart.
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 will be affected, and the issuance of game version numbers has also been suspended.
It was not until December 21, 2018, at the annual meeting of the Chinese game industry, that the deputy director of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department announced that the first batch of games had completed the review of the version number and was being issued.
Between April and December 20, 2018, the entire online game sector fell by more than 35%.
During the cold winter, a large number of small and medium-sized game companies were forced to cancel their companies. 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.
Since the announcement of the re-approval of the version number on December 21, to the peak of the backlog of version numbers in April 2019, the online game sector has rebounded by nearly 30%.
Source: Wind
For game companies, getting a version number represents a source of revenue to some extent. The re-approval of game versions means that new games may be launched smoothly, driving performance growth.
In short, the thawing of the version number is indeed a strong boost to the recovery of the game industry.
However, in addition to the excitement, don't forget that the trend of strict and tight approval of game version numbers will not change.
As early as August 2018, the Ministry of Education and other eight departments of the red head document "Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Children and Adolescents Myopia Implementation Plan", it was clearly stated that the State Press and Publication Administration will control the number of new online game operations, and implement total control of online games.
Judging from the approval of domestic game version numbers in recent years, the number is indeed decreasing year by year.
The number of domestic online game versions, source: CITIC Construction Investment
Therefore, we should not have unrealistic illusions about how loose this wave of game version numbers will be loosened.
02
Root of the disease
In fact, the game industry is in trouble, and the culprit has never been the version number.
More often, it's just an excuse to float to the lips, covering up the internal decay wounds – poor performance, all blamed on too strict supervision.
In essence, the core problem of the game industry lies in the product, followed by the capital chain, and finally the issue of the version number.
Money is messy.
In the era of no version number, some small workshops, relying on the amount of vest bags to buy, version number skin, strong iOS and other disgraceful means, but also can make a little money. Large companies are too much to watch.
This is also why most of the games we have on the market have a short lifespan.
Take the Digimon New Age mobile game I played as an example.
At the end of last year, the game was launched for more than a week, and there were as many as two hundred iOS WeChat areas alone, almost every two hours.
Constantly allow players to join new servers, compete for leaderboard positions, and increase overall profitability. Of course, how many childcare children are on the previous rankings is unknown.
Insiders call it "rolling suits.".
Although this technique is not new in the era of mobile games, everyone understands it. But for a post-90s person like me, with full of feelings to pay for the feelings, even Krypton gold is actually willing.
However, when it is found that the feelings only stay in the promotional video, the gameplay is very different from other games, and only the endless amount of money is left, it is gradually boring. Half a month is about two thousand yuan, the freshness passed, I uninstalled this mobile game.
In the previous era of terminal games, online games were basically operated in the form of "big clothes", no matter whether new or old players can play well, the server ecology is much better than now. The only drawback may be that it is not as fast as the roll-on mode.
For a long time in the past, our game market has taken "boutique" as a correct nonsense, and in the more and more inward-rolled game market, it is king to change skins and rub IP to make money.
Sink your heart, spend three or five years, invest a lot of talent and money for a long time, and do a so-called AAA masterpiece? No kidding, brother, do you want me to die!
And when the players' enthusiasm is exhausted, there will be no more expectations.
03
split apart
It is foreseeable that the loosening of policies will inevitably be followed by more rigorous and rigorous review rules.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the abuser to survive.
Recently, the person in charge of the Publishing Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department said in an interview that it will focus on the implementation of the "positive energy of online games" leading plan and launch a number of high-quality online games with distinct main themes and positive energy.
Of course, aside from a series of problems such as the rising cost caused by product reviews, a more complete regulatory system is itself a sign of industry maturity. Just like the medical industry, FIFA's universal ethics committee.
Both practitioners and investors need to adapt to the new era and new rules. It's like adapting to the dragon mark with a gold face on a green background before the movie began.
In the process of adapting to the rules, the differentiation of large and small companies will further intensify.
Compared with small and medium-sized companies, large companies are more exquisite in all aspects and the structure is relatively perfect. Because of the abundant personnel and funds, in the event of policy changes, it can also be quickly revised to avoid most problems.
Especially after the floodgates are opened and the water is released, the law of the jungle of survival of the fittest is even more naked.
According to the law of the past, the vast majority of games that get version numbers are produced by large manufacturers, and they will quickly suck away most of the market traffic.
January 2017 - March 2018 game version number, source: Soochow Securities
In 2021, China's gaming population is 666 million, which is already saturated compared to a few years ago. Especially after the implementation of the new anti-addiction regulations, the protection policy for minors has achieved practical results, and the user structure has gradually become reasonable.
In other words, the total amount of the market is relatively fixed, and the remaining traffic cost will rise as a result.
For small and medium-sized companies that start by traffic promotion, it is very unfriendly - players with weak capital will have to pay higher costs.
This is the basic logic of Hengqiang, a strong man in the game industry. In the future, industry resources will continue to be concentrated in larger and more creative companies, showing a one-nine differentiation.
Therefore, the version number has been suspended for so long, the real impact is those industry leaders, after the release number is unfreezed, it will only benefit them more, rather than the uneven small and medium-sized enterprises.
Needless to say, in terms of the domestic situation, small and medium-sized manufacturers want to go far on the road of boutique, and want to survive, time, manpower, funds and version numbers can not afford. Either speculation is just a wave of bad money, or it is absorbed by the giants, or it can only choose to turn around and go to sea.
04
Sea
Some people say that under the cold winter of the version number, going to sea is the only way for game companies to survive.
In fact, regardless of whether the version number is restored or not, in the days when the domestic game battlefield is collected, for small and medium-sized enterprises that are getting bigger and bigger with the big factories, going to the sea is the only way to break the encirclement of the big factories.
Even, after the release of the version number, small companies that are becoming more and more uncompetitive have a stronger desire to go to sea.
According to agency forecasts, the potential size of the overseas game market is about 4.5 times that of today's domestic game overseas revenue.
According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Music and Digital Association, in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets was 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year. In contrast, the actual sales revenue of China's domestic game market in 2021 increased by only 6.4% year-on-year.
China's game overseas market size forecast, source: CITIC Securities
More importantly, national policies are also supporting the game to go to sea.
In November last year, the Ministry of Commerce and 17 other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Support the High-quality Development of National Cultural Export Bases" to encourage digital cultural products such as games, film and television dramas, and cultural and creative products and traditional cultural products to "go global".
The charm of overseas markets lies in diversification. Giants can use scale and capital to crush opponents at home, but it is difficult to achieve global unification and scale overseas.
Southeast Asia, in particular, is considered to be one of the most promising markets for games to go global.
It not only has the world's fourth largest game market, but also the fastest growing region of the global Internet scale, and the cultural habits of local people are similar to those of the chinese market, which is one of the first choices for Chinese game manufacturers to go to sea.
According to Sensor Data, in 2021, a total of 48 Chinese mobile games were shortlisted for the Southeast Asia Best-Seller List Top100, with a total of about $980 million, accounting for 54% of the total revenue of the Top100, of which some domestic waist companies rely on localization operation and optimization, with outstanding revenue and download performance.
It is not difficult to see from the data that regardless of large, medium, and small players, the results achieved overseas are good. Driven by the first wave of players, in order to survive, more people will choose to ride the wind in the future.
Even, compared with the big factories of "ship big difficult u-turn", small and medium-sized players with small volume and limited investment will give priority to starting from ultra-casual games that are not particularly high in technology overseas, and the opportunities are greater.
Times make heroes.
More free market competition, more huge room for improvement, maybe today's humble small company, in a few years can become the tide of the times.