The game version number is coming, and I still choose to leave

Shenrancaijing original

Author | Wanqi

Edit | Li Qiuhan

The game industry waited for more than 8 months, and finally ushered in the news of the restart of the version number in April this year.

The professionals who are in it finally see the dawn of the industry. On the pulse, some gamers said that the game circle is going to be the New Year, asserting that the "copper three silver four" is over, and it is time to usher in the "gold five silver six". Some people who are looking for a job are also actively asking the game company insiders whether the company will release new positions, ask for pulls, etc.

Prior to this, the number of game version numbers issued from 2019 to 2021 was 1545, 1405 and 755, respectively, and continued to decrease for three years. Due to the suspension, the number of edition numbers in the whole year of 2021 decreased by 46.26% year-on-year. This time, the version number was restarted, and only 45 were opened.

Did the Gold Five Silver Six really come?

The version number is equivalent to a game pass, if you can't get it, the game can't be launched in the national service area, the game company can't monetize by selling digital goods and other forms, and the initial investment can't flow back normally.

In the days of equal editions, the choice of game practitioners is decreasing. Many small and medium-sized game companies have stopped recruiting, and the head game companies are also reducing some game projects in order to open source and reduce expenditure. According to Tianyancha data, there are more than 4,300 online game-related cancellation enterprises in 2021, and as of May 6 this year, more than 1,060 enterprises have been cancelled. The number of newly registered companies is also shrinking. As of April 22, 2022, more than 160 online game-related enterprises were newly registered, a year-on-year decrease of 87.66%.

Young people who have been attracted to the game industry by high salaries in the past are facing the dilemma of reducing recruitment positions and finding difficulties in job searches, and the competitive pressure in the workplace is also increasing under the update and iteration of game projects for on-the-job practitioners.

The version number is coming, and some of the gamers have left.

The version number is coming, and the gamer goes and stays

After 95, Li Li originally did two-dimensional game operation in an Internet company, and last year, his game project was cut and he has been submitting resumes. "One click delivered a lot of companies, not even an interview opportunity", he used "bleak" to describe the experience of finding a job last year, during which he could only support himself with flowers and credit cards.

In the six months of looking for a job, Li Li simply changed his job search ideas, left the game industry, and transformed into a script killing game design. "The game design and literary policy ideas for mobile games can be appropriated into the script killing game," Li Li said.

The gaming industry is undergoing a reshuffle. According to the research interpretation of CITIC Securities, the policy orientation of the game industry is that adhering to the strategy of high-quality content to games and reducing game addiction, strengthening the protection of minors, and encouraging going to sea will become the long-term development path of the game industry in the future. An analyst mentioned that the suspension of the version number does have a greater impact on game manufacturers, but this is also a strengthened supervision of the past game industry's pursuit of skinning and copycats.

According to the "2021-2022 China Game Enterprise R&D Competitiveness Report" released by Gamma Data, game talents have undergone a new round of internal adjustment in 2021, and some companies have also entered the contraction transformation stage from the expansion stage. In the second half of 2021, the social recruitment demand of game developers fell sharply year-on-year, and the overall recruitment demand fell by 23%.

Some insiders told the media that many project teams were dissolved due to their inability to get the version number, and there were even projects with an investment of over 100 million. "If you can't get the version number, the company will reduce costs and increase efficiency, and it can't raise this batch of employees in vain," he said.

Source / Visual China

Anata, a game project manager of a major manufacturer, said that since last year, the number of recruitment places in the game department of a large factory has been decreasing. "My project team hasn't recruited new people since last year, and the entire game department hasn't had any new projects," she says.

This time the big wave of sand, there are also people hesitant to take the initiative to leave.

The gaming industry is a high-intensity industry. A game operator mentioned that if you catch up with the company's new projects, it is common to leave work at three or four o'clock in the morning, "if you can't get a taxi at night, you will call the goods Lala", he said.

According to the "Tencent Game Practitioners Survey Report" released by Tencent in 2019, 58.9% of the respondents said that they worked overtime every day, 35.9% of the respondents said that they worked overtime frequently, 5.2% of the respondents said that they occasionally worked overtime, and the number of respondents who never worked overtime was 0.

A senior practitioner in the game industry said that the release of the version number does make many peers see hope, but he believes that the future version number issuance may become more and more stringent. "Instead of worrying all day, it's better to plan early," he said, adding that many of his peers have similar ideas.

The atmosphere of the game industry is young, and some "elderly" gamers over the age of 30 are already anxious. Some people in the workplace choose to be teachers after leaving the game company, a relatively easy and stable career, and completely leave the game circle.

Job hunting is more inward-looking, and the threshold for head factories is getting higher and higher

Some people leave, some people wander, but it is undeniable that under the attraction of high salaries, the game industry is still the first choice for some young people, but the competition has become more intense.

"I didn't expect to recruit such a volume", said a fresh graduate, this year's spring recruitment, most of the competitors encountered in the interview, most of them began to make small games and participate in various game projects in college. In terms of academic qualifications, he started as a graduate student, and he was brushed off in the first round.

An insider of a head game company said that he often published recruitment internal push information on Pulse, Little Red Book, and Douyin, and after the release of the version number, the company's external recruitment post was gradually opened, and he received a lot of internal push resumes from April, and many people came to him for consultation. "I receive no less than five resumes every day," he says.

After all, the salary here is attractive, and the welfare benefits are comparable to those of a big factory. According to the statistics of recruitment salaries in the fourth week after the Spring Festival, online games ranked second in the Internet industry with an average monthly salary of 12135 yuan, second only to technical posts. Anata said that in some game project groups with good revenue, they can get up to more than 20 months of year-end bonuses. In core positions such as R&D, it is not surprising that the "annual salary of one million" for 5-7 years of work is not surprising.

Source / unsplash

But that doesn't mean all practitioners are being scrambled. Gamma data mentioned that under the pressure of shrinking transformation, senior/senior game developers with core competitiveness are more valued in social recruitment. In 2021, among the three types of positions of program, planning and art, senior R&D personnel with 3-5 years of work experience have the highest recruitment demand and a large demand gap. Under the pressure of game quality, game companies will pay more attention to the reserve and training of senior/senior game developers.

At the same time, the uncertainty of the version number has made some game companies more cautious in recruitment. A headhunter said that the game company he serves, the first criterion for recruiting people is academic qualifications, basically all of them must be graduate students, after which to see if there is actual combat experience in the direction of the game.

Anata, in a leading Internet factory, said that more and more people are submitting resumes to the company, which can only be screened through hard criteria, and even refined to the number of job seeker schools in the country, "from development, operation, to planning, the recruitment threshold of various departments is getting higher."

The tightening of the version number policy shows the advantages of the head game company.

Previously, some industry insiders said in an interview with the media that in the game industry, large manufacturers have more advantages, "they can invest tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan to make a game, but also can afford the risk of the game is not hot, do not make money, but small manufacturers have neither money to develop nor bear the risk." At present, the version number policy is tightened, and the challenges faced by small and medium-sized companies are even greater.

At the same time, head game companies are becoming more and more cautious when setting up game projects. Anata said that domestic manufacturers, especially large manufacturers, are developing in the direction of high-quality games. Taking Tencent as an example, hundreds of games will be issued in the previous year, and last year' self-research + agent only added more than a dozen commercial mobile games, and this year's planning may be less than ten. "The technical capabilities of R&D and the design capabilities of designers will become more and more demanding," she said.

Of course, this is also related to changes in the industry environment. Game design Li Mei told Shen Yan that now that the project meeting is held, the supervisors will take the game "Original God" as a sample, saying how beautiful the game is in design, and hoping that the game being developed has such quality. "It puts a lot of pressure on us," she says.

Where can people who don't want to leave go?

The version number is not issued, and some game companies are looking for another way out.

Going to sea has become an unstoppable trend for game companies. According to the analysis of CITIC Securities, China's game going overseas has made a stage breakthrough, and it is expected that the revenue of China's mobile games going to sea will reach 32.898 billion US dollars in 2025, and the compound annual growth rate of the next 4 years will rise by 20%, corresponding to the doubling of space in 2021. According to media reports, of the 27 companies that received investment in Q1 2022, there were 9 overseas companies, accounting for 33%.

Game industry analyst Zhang Shule said in the article that in 2018, after the first game version number was discontinued, many companies regarded the game going to sea as a lifesaver. During the second suspension of the version number, some game companies also took the game out to sea as an important way to "survive". At the same time, the success of games such as "Original God" has also allowed some game companies to increase overseas markets.

Specific to the workplace, job seekers with overseas study backgrounds are more popular, "especially in marketing, operations and other positions, more inclined to recruit some job seekers with foreign backgrounds," a game company HR told Shen Yan.

The game is divided into three stages, one is to directly send domestic ready-made products overseas, the second is to carry out more refined localization operations and distribution, and the third is to develop game products for overseas markets.

However, a gamer with an overseas work background mentioned that he originally did game planning overseas, because of the epidemic back to China, when submitting resumes, some HR and headhunters will take the initiative to find him, but he found that they are more inclined to recommend overseas operation positions to him, and insist on doing game planning, there is not much premium space. To some extent, this also means that there are many game companies that have not reached the third stage and are in the first and second stages of going to sea. Previously, some practitioners mentioned that during the period when the version number was discontinued, some game companies put the games tested by the national service into overseas markets such as Southeast Asia.

Source / unsplash

There are also some professionals who are concerned about indie games.

Game planner Mu Si said that the version number is tightened, the investment or distribution of independent games, stand-alone games has little impact, such games generally do not choose to test in the national service area, do not need to apply for version numbers, no advertising and no kryptonite, game developers rely on players to buy out profits.

At the same time, indie games have also appeared in recent years. "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds", which will be released in 2021, "the development cost of this game does not exceed 100 million, but it brings more than 500 million benefits," Mu Si said.

In 1997, Mu Si devoted himself to indie games. He once did game planning in a large game company in Xiamen, and wanted to have "self-expression" in the game and create good works, but commercial games paid more attention to guiding players to Krypton gold. He simply gathered three of his peers to work on the development of indie games.

Gamma Data also mentioned in the above report that domestic low-cost, heavy gameplay innovation independent games have achieved rapid development. One of the reasons is that the consumption concept of domestic gamers and copyright awareness have changed, the audience group of the buyout payment model has expanded, and the indie games and stand-alone games with low cost, light commerce and heavy gameplay have been further developed, and at the same time, this will become another way for Chinese games to go overseas.

According to the calculation of the national tour sales bar, the sales of domestic buyout games in 2021 will be about 2.79 billion yuan, an increase of 335% year-on-year, the largest increase in ten years. However, compared with the commercial game market, according to the "2021 China Game Industry Report", the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market in 2021 is 296.513 billion yuan. In contrast, indie games are still a niche branch.

Big game companies are shrinking their food and clothing, small and medium-sized game companies are facing capital turnover problems, and independent game teams are not the utopia of young gamers. "For most indie games in the market, it's still just a break-even," Musi said, adding that for investors, indie games have low returns.

But either way, whether it's aiming for games to go global or moving to indie games is becoming an option for young gamers who don't want to leave the game industry.

*Caption image from pexels. At the request of the interviewees, Anata, Li Li, Li Mei, and Mu Si are pseudonyms.