Stepping on the tail of April, game listed companies have also handed over their 2021 report cards. Affected by multiple factors such as tightening supervision, rising purchase costs, and peaking user dividends, the performance of most game companies is not satisfactory.
However, in the case of general pressure on the industry, the performance of some board game manufacturers is not bad, and the overall revenue has increased significantly year-on-year.
As early as 2018, when the regulatory policies of the game industry were tightened, there was a wave of shutdowns in board games, and the head company Boya Interactive (0434, HK) was also fined 943 million yuan for gambling in the game business. In December of the same year, the game version was re-issued after a nine-month suspension, and the previously approved board game has since disappeared from the version number list.
It should be pointed out that in the approval information of domestic online games released in April 2019, there are a number of board games, but they are basically pure board games such as backgammon, chess, and flying chess, not board games such as mahjong and poker.
The most recent board game that has been truly reviewed is the "Poke Volkswagen Mahjong Game Software V1.0" in December 2018, which was developed by Shanghai Boke City Network Technology Co., Ltd. and is the only board game that has been reviewed since the review of the version number was resumed. After the launch of the game product, Pock City even took "the only board game software that passed the version number review" as a promotional highlight.
In fact, until March 2018, board games have been an important part of the approval of domestic online games.
Taking January 2018 as an example, a total of 715 games received version numbers in that month, and there were 5 poker games such as Zhiyou Texas Hold'em and Star Fortune Texas Hold'em poker in the review list; and mahjong games were more than 200, accounting for more than a quarter of all reviewed games.
In February 2018, a total of 484 games passed the review, of which 113 were mahjong games, accounting for nearly a quarter; there were more than 40 poker games, of which there were 29 "landlord" games alone, which showed the popularity of board games at that time.
Today, board games such as "mahjong", "fighting landlords" and "fried golden flowers" have not obtained a new version number for 4 years, what do board game manufacturers rely on to make money? In the face of the pressure of missing version numbers, how to transform?
Revenue bucked the trend, and the proportion of "card games" declined significantly
Judging from the 2021 "report card" handed over by various game listed companies, in 2021, the performance of game listed companies is generally under pressure, while board game manufacturers are still performing well. According to the statistics of each reporter, the overall revenue of listed companies in the head board game in 2021 increased significantly year-on-year.
Specifically, among the five listed companies, Kunlun Wanwei (300418, SZ) and Yao Ji Technology (002605, SZ) are two A-share companies, and the remaining three are Hong Kong-listed companies. Among them, Kunlun Wanwei and Yaoji Technology have seen a sharp decline in net profit in 2021; Hong Kong-listed company Chanyou Technology (2660, HK) has the fastest growth rate, achieving a net profit of 503 million yuan in 2021, an increase of 125.3% year-on-year.
Yao Ji Technology said in the performance express report that the revenue growth is mainly due to the rapid growth of the company's Internet innovation marketing business segment; at the same time, the company's mobile game sector and playing card business are operating well, and the revenue is also continuing to grow.
Compared with the decline in the net profit of Kunlun Wanwei and Yaoji Technology, the performance growth of Zenyou Technology listed in 2019 is inseparable from the rapid rise of board games. According to the latest financial report data, Zenyou Technology's "board game" revenue increased from 64.39 million yuan in 2020 to 919 million yuan in 2021, accounting for 62.3% of total revenue from 8.7% in 2020.
The "card game" that once supported half of the company's revenue had a revenue of 517 million yuan in 2021, and the proportion of revenue fell to less than 40%. As of December 31, 2021, ZenYou Technology has a total of 86 game versions, including 55 board game numbers.
Image source: Screenshot of ZenYou Technology's 2021 financial report
The impact has long been highlighted
In the past operation, some local chess and card companies have operated games without obtaining a version number. Hometown Interactive (Hong Kong stock 03798) revealed in the prospectus that the three games under the name of the company's brand "Kole Games" did not obtain a version number, and the company took the initiative to terminate the operation of these three games, so it was not punished by the competent authorities.
From the overall situation, at present, the influence of local board games by the approval factor of the version number is not obvious. On the one hand, this is due to the characteristics of board game users, and on the other hand, because before the suspension of the approval of game version numbers in March 2018, many local board game companies obtained version numbers and launched a large number of games.
At present, Hometown Interactive has submitted eight applications to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, but after March 2018, it has not obtained any approval for the new game. However, Hometown Interactive said that according to the market conditions in the next two years, the company estimates that the registration of pre-approval can cover the game products that the company will launch.
In addition, according to the current provisions of the Notice on the Administration of Mobile Game Publishing Services issued in 2016, upgraded works and new expansion packs of mobile games that have been approved for publication (referring to changes in storyline, mission content, map form, etc., and changes in version with additional names, or numerical indications after the game name) are considered new works, and must be re-performed according to the corresponding approval procedures according to their categories in accordance with the provisions of the notice.
Hometown Interactive believes that the many game versions launched by the company only involve minor changes to the existing game rules, and do not involve the "new expansion pack" mentioned in the notice, so the company does not need to obtain further approval before launching the relevant game version.
Zhongzhi Technology did not explicitly mention in the prospectus how the version number will affect the company's business, but for the hidden risks in the field of board games, Zhongzhi Technology still prepared in advance.
Zhongzhi Technology said it intends to acquire and invest in suitable target companies to complement or enhance the company's existing business model. When selecting an acquisition target, the Company will consider a number of factors, including license and certificate registration, developed game types, geographical coverage, and number and type of active players.
Compared with the "understatement" of local board game companies, some national board game companies have clearly felt the chill of the market.
In 2018, the operating income of Boya Interactive (Hong Kong stock 00434) was about 453 million yuan, a decrease of 38% over the same period last year; Boya Interactive said that the important reason for the decline in revenue was "the market rumor that the government will issue the "Management Measures for Board And Card Online Games" and remove Texas Hold'em games", which led to some platforms taking down their related products.
In the first quarter of 2019, Boyaa Interactive's operating income was 80.2 million yuan, a significant decrease of 50% over the same period of the previous year. In addition, the number of paid players, the total number of users, and monthly active users of Boya Interactive have all declined significantly.
Another veteran board game company, Lianzhong (Hong Kong stock 06899), had revenue of 343 million yuan in 2018, down 9% year-on-year, of which game revenue was 267 million yuan, down 14% year-on-year. Lianzhong said in the annual report that 2018 was the most challenging period for the company, an important part of the company's business, and the domestic board game business encountered major industry regulatory resistance beyond expectations.
Due to the difference in operating models, the impact and impact of local board games is currently significantly smaller than that of national board game companies, but in the long run, if local board game companies do not have a large-scale foundation and diversified capabilities, it will be difficult to get out of the contradiction of standardization and growth, especially some small and medium-sized manufacturers.
Analysys Qianfan research report believes that with the user, content and operation mode different from other game products, even if the regulatory environment becomes stricter, mobile board games still maintain strong stability in terms of user scale, but in the current regulatory and market environment, mobile board games have basically reached the market ceiling, and there is little room for growth that can be tapped.
Teng Hua, general manager and founding partner of Gamma Data, said that although the product structure is single and the innovation ability is insufficient, the board game enterprises have a very strong deep cultivation and operation ability, if this ability can be continuously converted to other high-quality and healthy products, the board game companies can also have their own unique core competitiveness in the future.
Board games have low entry barriers and difficulty in auditing
Why is there a large number of board game numbers issued at the same time in 2017?
Sun Lei, a partner at Beijing Yuanhe Law Firm and an expert in game law, pointed out in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that this phenomenon was not uncommon in the approval of games at that time. "Because different regions also have different mahjong games, in order to promote the localization of board games, mahjong games played in different regions will be allowed to apply for version numbers separately."
He further pointed out that after the introduction of the "lobby mode" of board games, it supports the game to set up a variety of different regional gameplay, so as to apply for only one version number at a time, avoiding the situation that one company obtains a large number of chess and card version numbers at the same time.
In addition to board games, the number of elimination, fishing, and parkour games in the three types of games reviewed in 2017 was also large. However, looking back at the description of the three types of games in the "Notice", "it does not involve political, military, ethnic, religious and other themes, and there is no storyline or simple plot of casual puzzle domestic mobile games", the formation of these situations is also reasonable.
The simple game system and story content mean that the development of the three types of games is not difficult, thus lowering the barrier to entry for game companies. An interviewee who had work experience in the board game project team revealed to 21 reporters that three types of games such as chess and card, fishing, and match-3 were the easiest to succeed in the market environment at that time, and at the same time the lowest cost. "[These games] have simple art resources and strong source code, which was done by game companies across the country in 2017."
In addition, the difficulty of reviewing game content was also one of the key factors in determining the speed of game review at that time. "The difficulty of reviewing the three types of games is much lower than that of the four types of games." Sun Lei told reporters, "The world view and text volume in the four types of games are much more complicated than those in the three types of games, which directly increases the review work of each process." ”
In the review process for the publication of online game works listed on the official website of the State Press and Publication Administration, the review of content is divided into two links: "formal review" and "substantive review". In the "formal review" link, after the general department of the Digital Publishing Department receives the application materials for the game work, the relevant examiners finally decide whether to accept the publication of the work after preliminary review, while in the "substantive review" link, the relevant experts, handling personnel and the person in charge of the Network Publishing Supervision Department conduct the content review again.
A staff member told reporters that in the process of reviewing a game, there are generally only 1 to 2 staff members who review the content at each link. "The time to review a three-category game is much shorter than reviewing an MMO (massively multiplayer online game), so the approval of the version number of the three types of games will also be much faster."
At the same time, he also pointed out that when reviewing the four types of games with a large volume, it is not only necessary to pay attention to the dialogue and world view background of the characters in the game, but also to review the details of "cigarette butts on the ground and posters on the wall", which is a large workload and high difficulty, and the review time is further extended.
On the official website of the State Press and Publication Administration, a flow chart of online game approval is provided for reference. 21 reporters after consulting relevant experts, the other side said that the current overall process is still in accordance with the steps on the flow chart, but in 2020, a new link to determine the "age-appropriate prompt" has been added, that is, the game company needs to clarify the range in which the game's age-appropriate prompt falls while applying for the version number.
After 2018, it is difficult to see the card game version number, and board game companies are looking for new growth points
In 2022, the first batch of game version numbers were issued to make the game circle "Xida Puben", but there was no board game company in it. In fact, with the strengthening of industry supervision, some board games have disappeared from the list of edition numbers at the end of 2018.
According to the incomplete statistics of each reporter through the State Press and Publication Administration, in the first three months of 2018 (before the last game version number was suspended), there were at least 896 "card games" containing keywords such as "card", "poker", "mahjong" and "landlord", which can be said to account for almost half of the total number of game versions.
However, after the game version number was re-issued in December 2018, the number of board game versions dropped sharply, and only one client game under Poker City, "Poker Volkswagen Mahjong Game Software V1.0", received the game version number that month. Since then, no card games such as "Landlord" and "Mahjong" have obtained new versions, and only some board games such as "Backgammon" and "Chess" are left in the annual version number list. In addition, every reporter also noted that fishing games have not appeared in the list of editions since the end of 2018.
Game industry analyst Zhang Shule told every reporter: "If board and card game companies do not have a particularly novel board game introduction, they do not rely too much on the version number, but iterate on the previous board game platform." At the same time, as one of the forms at the beginning of the birth of domestic online games, board games have a certain degree of user stickiness, and the verticality of their product types and the all-age nature of users have formed a stable but rising pattern. ”
However, although board games can maintain a relatively stable flow for a long time, the lack of new version numbers will inevitably affect the long-term development of game companies, and in the context of increasing industry supervision, board game companies need to find new growth points.
In addition to the exploration of the compliance of board games, Zenyou Technology has also added new ways to play for old products under the condition of limited version numbers to meet user needs, improve user activity and extend the life cycle of game products.
In addition, ZenYou Technology has also launched some casual games in recent years. Every reporter searched for the game version number operation unit through the State Press and Publication Administration and found that ZenYou Technology had obtained the two game version numbers of "Fingertip Guangxi Mahjong" and "Fingertip Yunnan Mahjong" in March 2018, and then obtained the version number of 10 games between February 2019 and June 2021, mostly for casual games such as elimination and pinball.
Zhang Shule believes that the user attribute requirements of casual small games and casual competitive games such as chess and cards are very close, and board game companies can use this to develop derivative chains and revitalize user resources, but the innovation and income level of casual small games is average, so the enthusiasm of game companies to develop and apply for version numbers is not too high.
Board games themselves have a certain degree of user stickiness, and the verticality of their product types and the user's all-age nature have formed a stable but general pattern of rising momentum, so they do not rely much on the issuance of new game versions. As a product with similar user attribute needs to board games, casual mini games may become a choice for chess and card manufacturers to develop derivative chains and revitalize user resources.
Article source: Daily Economic News
Reporter Li Jianning Wen Menghua
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