It is foreseeable that with the reopening of the approval of game versions in April 2022, the sales scale of China's game industry is expected to achieve rapid growth in the next one to two years.
April 8, 2022, is destined to become a day in history for China's game industry. Since July 22, 2021, the game version number that lasted for 263 days has been suspended, and finally officially ended. On the evening of April 11, the State Press and Publication Administration announced on its official website the approval information of domestic online games in April 2022, and a total of 45 games received distribution numbers, such as "Sword Net 3 Origins", "Sandstone Town Time", and "Pottery Master", which had previously been widely concerned.
The official website of the State Press and Publication Administration has published a list of trial games
Affected by the resumption of approval of the game version number, many game concept stocks have gone against the market, Tencent has risen by more than 5%, NetEase has risen by more than 5%, Bilibili has risen by nearly 14%, Youzu Network, 37 Interactive Entertainment, Gigabit, etc. have increased to varying degrees, and Youzu Network has opened on April 12.
At the same time, the game version number directly rushed to the second place in Weibo's hot search, and the entire Chinese game circle fell into a boil. Some of the games that have obtained the version number, such as "Sword Net 3 Origin" and "Sand town time", have updated the latest progress of the game on Weibo. Among them, "Sand and Gravel Town Time" also announced that it will release the Early Access version on multiple platforms on May 26. For many companies that are suffering from the game version number, this moment is comparable to a long drought and Ganlin.
The independent game "Pottery Master", which applied for two years, has been re-listed on the Steam platform and sold normally. AZGames, the producer of "Pottery Master", first announced that the mobile version of "Pottery Master" will land on TapTap within a month. This game, which is widely anticipated by players, has finally waited for the moment to meet domestic players. On the B station, the video "477 days without a game version number, can't be stopped" released by AZGames at the end of last year is being archaeologized by many viewers, and everyone sent heartfelt blessings to AZGames - "Congratulations on getting the version number!" ”
It was dawn.
The version number winter is a topic that is enough to change the color of the domestic game circle. For the past six months, the entire industry has been waiting every day for the day when the version number is restored. Take Master Potter, for example, a game that could have met players in July 2021. When AZGames made all the preparations and applied for the game version number from the relevant departments, the approval of the domestic game version number suddenly stopped. Affected by this, "Master of Pottery" not only cannot be sold in the Steam country, but the mobile version has also entered a difficult birth. As an indie game developer, AZGames has suffered a blow that can be imagined.
The encounter of "Pottery Master" is a microcosm of the cold winter of the version number. Games such as "Sandstone Town Time" and "Chinese Parents" cannot be released in the national region due to the problem of version numbers. AZGames is lucky, after the cold winter of the edition number, "Master of Pottery" is about to successfully board the mobile platform. But other games are far less lucky. In February this year, Lilith's first two-dimensional game "Eden Apocalypse" project was terminated, the reason is that the long-term inability to obtain the version number has become the last straw that crushed the camel.
Under this cold winter, not only independent game developers, small and medium-sized enterprises have been greatly affected, even large companies, can not stand alone. Perfect World's MMORPG "Magic Tower" was determined to land on multiple platforms very early, but due to the suspension of the version number, Perfect World was unable to get the version number of the PC side of "Magic Tower". The "Magic Tower" that players play on the PC side is essentially running through the mobile phone simulator, so the drawback is that every time the PC side of the "Magic Tower" is started, it needs to be logged in and verified on the mobile phone, and the instability brought by the simulator also affects the player's game experience.
Large and medium-sized companies such as Perfect World and Lilith have strong risk resistance, and even if they are affected by the suspension of the version number, they can still survive. More small businesses, as well as independent game developers, face huge survival challenges in the cold winter of the version number. According to Tianyan, in the past 263 days, a total of 22,000 game-related companies in China have been cancelled.
Just at the end of February this year, a rumor that "no game version number will be issued in 2022" has been raging. Although the State Press and Publication Administration quickly debunked the rumor, the stock prices of many game companies still fell in response, and the entire industry was once in a frenzy.
This isn't the first time the gaming industry has experienced a cold winter. As early as March 2018, there was a 9-month version number window period in China, which once triggered a great depression in the game industry. At that time, the cold winter of the version caused nearly 20,000 game-related companies to close down. It was not until the end of 2018 that the game version number was gradually restored to approval.
Looking back at the two edition winters in 2018 and 2021, we can see some long-standing problems in the domestic game industry and the future development direction.
Judging from the results, both versions of the cold winter have the shadow of "shock therapy".
Before 2018, the department responsible for game approval was the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. With the advancement of the reform of state institutions, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued the Notice on Important Matters Concerning the Approval of Game Declarations in March of that year, suspending the approval of domestic game version numbers until December 2018. On January 9, 2019, the State Press and Publication Administration announced the "Approval Information for Domestic Online Games in December 2018", and the approval of game version numbers was restarted and the Central Propaganda Department began to be responsible.
Intuitive data shows that in 2017, a total of 9369 game version numbers were issued in China. In 2018, that number plummeted to 2,064.
Source: Prospective Industry Research Institute
The direct impact of this is that the sales growth rate of China's game industry in 2018 was as low as 5.3%, and the annual sales data was 214.44 billion yuan, which was comparable to 2017. In 2017, the sales growth rate was as high as 23%, and the gap was obvious.
Source: Prospective Industry Research Institute
A similar situation will almost repeat itself in 2021. In 2021, the sales growth rate of China's game industry is only 6.4%, and a year ago, this data was 20.71%, a huge gap.
Source: 2021 China Game Industry Report
Between the two edition winters, that is, from 2019 to 2020, the sales scale of China's game industry has achieved substantial growth, from 214.44 billion in 2018 to 278.68 billion in 2020. It is foreseeable that with the reopening of the approval of game versions in April 2022, the sales scale of China's game industry is expected to achieve rapid growth in the next one to two years. The collective red of game concept stocks confirms capital's optimistic forecast for the future of China's game industry.
Perhaps at this moment, it is not of much significance to discuss the cold winter of the version number. Let's discuss objectively, what has the cold winter of the version brought to the game industry?
First, it objectively promotes the game industry to develop towards standardization.
At the end of 2018, after the game supervision was transferred to the State Press and Publication Administration, a mature approval process was gradually formed around the game version number. With the stricter approval of version numbers, the situation of a large number of vulgar, low-quality games and skinned games in the market since 2018 has been transformed, although it has not fully achieved the purpose of "forcing quality", but the domestic game environment has been significantly improved.
At the same time, the version number Winter has further enhanced the crisis awareness of domestic game companies. Since 2019, large companies such as Tencent and NetEase have begun to reserve version numbers in a planned way to cope with possible crises in the future. Games with a longer life cycle have become the focus of research and development of many game companies, and objectively lead the trend of game quality.
Second, the game has gradually become the consensus of the industry.
In September 2018, during the first edition of the cold winter, the SLG mobile game "Awakening of All Nations" developed by Lilith was officially open beta overseas. It was not until June 15, 2020, that Lilith was approved as the domestic game version of Awakening of Nations. For two years, Awakening of Nations became the de facto representative of Chinese games going to sea. Among them, in October 2019, with a staggering flow of 61 million US dollars, "Awakening of All Nations" ranked first in the domestic overseas game revenue list.
Image source: SensorTower
There is no doubt that "Awakening of Nations" injected a dose of tonic into the sluggish domestic game market at that time. The game's going to sea not only bypasses the barrier of domestic version approval, but also guides a new blue ocean for the increasingly saturated domestic game market.
After "Awakening of All Nations", the most successful game to go to sea is the open world mobile game "Original God" owned by MihaYou. On September 28, 2020, "Original God" officially opened the global full-platform public beta, and quickly achieved success in both domestic and overseas markets. In the whole year of 2021, the flow of "Original God" exceeded 30 billion, of which half of the flow was contributed by overseas markets.
Source: B station two-dimensional mobile game observation
The successive success of Lilith and Mihayou in overseas markets has also pointed out a way out for domestic small and medium-sized game manufacturers. In the face of the increasingly monopolized domestic game market by oligarchs such as Tencent and NetEase, the potential of overseas markets is extremely huge.
Tencent, NetEase and other giants also did not sit idly by, Tencent has acquired a number of studios overseas, and NetEase has directly established Sakura Studio in Japan to join the competition for the overseas game market. On February 26, 2022, NetEase CEO Ding Lei made it clear that due to the suspension of domestic version numbers, the company has been exploring overseas markets and investing by producers. Now it seems that even if the version number is restored to approval, the pace of domestic game companies going to sea will not slow down. This may be the best situation brought about by the cold winter of the version number.
However, in the cold winter of the two editions, the problems exposed are also worthy of reflection in the industry.
When the game version number one is difficult to find, it is inevitable to produce a gray industrial chain around the game version number. During the first edition winter, the underground trading of the game version number has been undercurrent, and even the version number merchants who specialize in the resale of the version number have emerged. After the arrival of the second version of the winter in 2021, the underground trading of the game version number has made a comeback. Among them, the version number of xianxia, martial arts and legendary games is particularly favored by the market.
Image source: Sina News
Even if there is a precedent for the first edition of the winter, for many small enterprises, it is simply impossible to have the ability of large companies to reserve the version number. For game projects in the research and development stage, there is no need for game version numbers. However, for the upcoming games, even if you spend a high price to buy the version number from the black market, the small company can only "Zhou Yu play the yellow cover" to ensure the smooth launch of the game and then monetize. Even so, the game version number is often priceless, and small businesses that cannot buy the version number can only die during the cold winter of the version number.
It is also affected by the lack of reserve version capacity, and compared with large game companies, smaller companies, as well as independent game developers, are more affected by the cold winter of version numbers. Especially for independent game developers, even if they can log in to overseas markets through the Steam platform, these domestic independent games are often mainly for the domestic market and are more favored by domestic players. This is the case with "Master pottery", which sells pottery and runs exhibition halls. Not being able to obtain approval for domestic game version numbers means that the game cannot be monetized, which objectively greatly increases the threshold of game research and development, hinders the diversified development of games, and promotes the oligopoly situation of the game industry.
During the cold winter of the version number, the game company "open source throttling" has become a consensus. Even large enterprises such as Tencent and Perfect World have experienced different degrees of personnel optimization. At the beginning of the year, the Internet manufacturers once derived the industry black talk of "graduation" to lay off employees. After the termination of Lilith's "Apocalypse of Eden" project, the original project manager entered the "job search" state, and this scenario has been playing out continuously for the past six months.
Network transmission B station "graduation day"
Today's game industry has become a 100-billion-level industry related to people's entertainment, social employment, GDP growth, and foreign exchange income generation.
The impact of the cold winter on the entire game industry is obvious. In addition to the force majeure factor, how to try to avoid the recurrence of the version number winter may be the problem that needs to be pondered.
We have reason to believe that with the official reply to the approval of game version numbers, the vitality of China's game market will be further released. Whether it is an independent game for "Pottery Master", or a game for going to sea to "Awakening of All Nations" and "Original God", these will not become a masterpiece.
May all the players, the days to come, all the best.