The version number is coming, and the game is gone

April 11 is not a normal day, the new game version number came down, 45.

The last time a new game was reviewed was july 2021, 263 days ago.

What is the concept, for a new game with an uncertain future, the criterion of success or failure depends on the change in retention and activity in the first month. 263 days is enough for Supercell's two-year star product "Brawl of the Wild" from 120,000 daily iOS downloads to less than 8,000.

Games born with a golden spoon are rare, and behind the vast majority of new games are no big money and national IP support, which has to be a torturous process of constant trial and error, adjusting direction, and then waiting for the god of games to come. But if there is no version number, there is not even a chance of trial and error. Nine months of stagnation is too long for the game industry that dare not be patient.

On April 12, game producer AZGames updated the dynamics of finally getting the version number on the B station. His game "Master of Pottery" waited two years to get the version number, but the game that will soon be launched on the domestic Android and iOS platforms is still lucky. Carefully calculated, even if this time is such a little domestic new game, it seems that there are only 35 models that can be successfully launched in the end, and some games have not survived to the news of the version number.

Some companies have begun to do e-commerce, and some have turned to building materials.

Hangzhou Cut-off Network Technology Co., Ltd., the operating company of "Interesting Manor", underwent a change in the company's business scope at the end of October last year. After the change of the information displayed by Tianyancha, network technical services, software development and other services were placed after the import and export of goods and import and export agency business. The official website has also become "click shopping", and there is no game element.

Shanghai Binluo Network Technology Co., Ltd., the operator of another mobile game "Magic Eye Fight", the official website seems to have been transformed into a construction material download website, mainly providing architectural design and solutions and CAD drawing download, which is now inaccessible.

Image source: Cut a cut to the official website of the network

Image source: GameLook

There are those who look even more desperate.

Lang Yi Interactive, the operator of "The Way Forward", seems to have decided to find a way out of search optimization consulting or blockchain outside of the game. The humble official website even put down his body and started a 2 yuan once knowledge payment business. The company advertises itself as "a high-tech enterprise focusing on the development of video game software", and now it seems that the two have little to do with each other.

Image source: Langyi Interactive official website

And if the public information is accurate, there are companies that have reduced their clothes and food, and their business addresses have changed from an office to a desk.

In October last year, Lingyou Network, the operator of Time Travel Master, changed its address from an office in the Hainan Ecological Software Park to a workstation. This is truly the narrowest company imaginable.

Go along the WEB, a paper-like interface, no clickable entrance, empty "contact us" - it seems that the company has no heart to take care of the official website.

Source: Lingyou Network official website

In addition to these few, there are also some games associated with the operator's official website can not be opened, or encountered survival problems during this waiting period. For example, Bochuan Network, the operating company of "Dream Puppy", according to the data, this company was included in the list of abnormal operations by the territorial market supervision and administration bureau in September last year, because the local supervision and administration bureau could not contact the company through the registered residence or business premises.

The uncertainty of the discontinuation of the version number has largely become unsustainable for small and medium-sized game companies, and the above-mentioned companies that have changed are just the tip of the iceberg.

Securities Daily has done statistics based on Tianyancha data, from July 2021 to the end of the five months, a total of 14,000 game-related companies written off, while the number of game companies written off in 2020 is 18,000.

Even Baidu painstakingly cut the game team in the fourth quarter of last year, although the new game "Attack on Rabbit" is also on this list of version numbers.

"It depends on whether the company restarts the project for the sake of the version number, or if the game is not on," an industry insider said when asked about how to deal with the version number of the game that did not wait.

In recent years, the number of game version numbers has been on a downward trend. The number of games that received a version number in 2019 was 1365, a number that dropped to 1308 in 2020 and then to less than 700 in 2021. But even so, the previous few years still looked affluent compared to 2022, which was almost halfway through and the number of edition numbers of less than 50.

Another set of seemingly coincidental figures is that April 11 is 263 days after the last edition was issued, and only 264 days after 2022.

This is not the first cold winter of the game industry, after the period of barbaric growth of the domestic game industry has passed, the tightening of the number of editions is seen as a means of screening out inferior games. However, the lack of clarity in the standards of review and the frequent stagnation of version number issuance in the past two years have made the living environment of the game industry more cruel. The data shows that the sales revenue growth rate of china's game market in 2021 has decreased by nearly 15% year-on-year.

This edition issue is a positive sign, but it is difficult to say that the thirst is quenched. The gaming industry still has to find its way to survive under a relatively pessimistic market expectation.

For domestic game companies, choosing to go to sea at this stage seems to be the only way to go. Gamma data shows that the actual sales revenue of Chinese original games in overseas markets last year has been close to half of the domestic market in the same period, and the growth rate of overseas market revenue has exceeded that of the domestic market. There are signs that Chinese game companies are increasingly looking for positions overseas.

It's just that the road is not smooth either. In January last year, Apple removed about 40,000 games from the Chinese App Store, including a large number of non-version games that bypassed the Restrictions on Chinese versions as foreign developers; in February this year, the Indian market suddenly removed 54 Chinese apps, including many Chinese games.

Chinese game companies, which had no choice but to flee their homes, are actually wrapped up in a greater uncertainty.

"But if the road to the sea is also blocked, there will be no way for everyone," a game industry source told Pin play.

"If a game gets a version number, but the R&D team is dissolved and the publishing company goes bankrupt, then is there a chance that the game will be re-examined?", a game industry practitioner once asked on social media.

It is hoped that while regulatory efforts have forced the game to become a boutique, this will not become another classic problem in the history of China's original games.