The game version is called "Hard Currency"! The industry tends to be calm, and it is difficult to reproduce the "million robbery war"

With the resumption of the issuance of a new batch of game versions, does it mean that the game industry has arrived in spring?

A few days ago, according to the surging news reporter's inquiry, this year's first batch of 45 games that have obtained version numbers, at least 8 game distribution companies have abnormal operating conditions such as team dissolution and business layoffs, and the abnormal proportion is about 17%.

A game company practitioner told the surging news reporter that the resumption of the issuance of the version number may bring a good trend to the game industry, but the industry still holds a calm and wait-and-see attitude, and the phenomenon of grabbing talents with millions of annual salaries in 2021 may be difficult to reproduce.

Previously, on the evening of April 11, the State Press and Publication Administration officially announced the approval information of domestic online games in April: 45 games were approved. Among them, Baidu, Gigabit, Heartbeat Network, 37 Interactive Entertainment, Youzu Network, Zhongqingbao, Lilith, and Chuangmeng Tiandi are all listed in the game. This is nearly 8 months since a batch of game version numbers were announced in July last year.

The version number becomes "hard currency", and the industry as a whole tends to be calm

For gaming industry practitioners, the night when the version number was resumed, the level of cheering was no less than that of the New Year.

On the day that the version number was restored, Huang Yimeng, CEO of Heartbeat Network, said in the circle of friends: "Dumplings are wrapped tonight", and Gao Lianxuan, president of Dreamworld, shared a song "Feeling Good"; Chen Fang, CEO of Youzu, said: "Champagne is open. Junhai CEO Chen Jinhai sent a circle of friends at 5 a.m., saying: "It's really not easy, three years to stay up a project." ”

Huang Yimeng, CEO of Heartbeat Network

Gao Lianxuan, president of DreamWorld

Youzu CEO Chen Fang

Despite this, the boost of the version number to the game industry is still obvious. From the perspective of market performance, the second day after the version number was restored, the entire game sector as a whole was red, and the market intuitively gave the response of the version number restart.

On April 12, game stocks such as Glacier Network (300533), Dasheng Culture (600892), and Youzu Network (002174) rose and opened, and Zhongqingbao (300052), Gigabit (603444), sanqi interactive entertainment (002555) rose more than 7%. But by the close of the day, the shares of the companies had begun to fall. Taking 37 Interactive Entertainment as an example, after the opening of a rapid rise, it quickly dived into the water and turned green, once fell by more than 7%, and finally closed at 23.63 yuan, down 1.95%.

According to the reporter's understanding, at present, the industry still holds a wait-and-see attitude towards the resumption of the issuance of the version number. Many practitioners said: "It is still necessary to wait until the next edition of the number is issued to have a clearer grasp of the current trend." Practitioners of a head enterprise in Shanghai told reporters that the impact of the issuance of the version number on T1-T2 enterprises is not large, because the original cash flow is relatively abundant, mainly for small game companies and work has a greater impact, which will directly affect their revenue.

However, some game companies have begun to transform and adjust. According to the public telephone, the surging news reporter tried to contact the registration and operation units of many games, including "Magic Eye Fight", "Dream Puppy", "Little City Lord" and so on, and was either told that he had "made a mistake" or could not answer the phone.

Industry insiders told the surging news reporter that it is not uncommon for the team to adjust before the suspension of the release of the version number. For example, when a company establishes a project for research and development, it may be optimistic about the prospects of the project, and then start research and development and apply for a version number, but the application process takes about half a year to a year, during which various unexpected situations may occur. "Even if the version number is issued, it may be that the game has already stopped research and development, or abandoned commercialization, and the suspension of the release of the version number only aggravates this situation."

From the perspective of recruitment, the version number has become the "hard currency" for game companies to attract talent. On the second day after the version number was restored, a game company changed its job posting on the homepage, highlighting: "The project under research has obtained a domestic version number." ”

"According to the tradition of previous years, gold, silver and silver have always been the season when the flow of talent in the game industry is relatively frequent, but this year is completely different." Industry insiders told the surging news reporter. Affected by the general layoffs of Internet companies this year, before the version number was restarted, large companies sought transformation, small publicity sought survival, the pace of expansion slowed down, and the liquidity of the talent market became worse.

Many industry insiders said that the resumption of the issuance of the version number may bring a new round of recruitment, but it is difficult to return to the "robbery war" in 2021. "After experiencing this round of suspension of the version number, most game companies are actually sober a lot, and the requirements for talent recruitment may be higher, after all, the current version number is a scarce resource, can not be wasted, and if you want to do a good job, you definitely need to have better talent." Game industry observer Zhang Xiong introduced to the surging news reporter.

"In the case of the hot wave of the entire game industry, most game manufacturers are also looking overseas, so this kind of talent may become the industry's fragrant food." Zhang Xiong thinks.

Previously, the head of a game industry department revealed to the surging news reporter that the talent mobility of the game industry is large, and there has been a "robbery war" around 2020, and many companies have offered extremely high salaries to tap talents.

"In 2020, a company publicly said that it would use an annual salary of one million to recruit artists from all over the world; the salaries of scarce positions such as TA, engine, and art in the Shanghai game circle increased by 20%-30%; a new big manufacturer did not hesitate to offer a 30w signing fee to recruit a Tencent planner; many recruitERS were less than 30 years old, but the annual salary was as high as 700,000-800,000."

According to the reporter's observation, the resumption of the issuance of the first batch of version numbers has not had a significant impact on the game talent market. "The main reason is that the total number of these editions is small, and it can only be said that there has been a marginal improvement in the situation, but there has been no reversal." An industry insider said.

Brokers are concerned about the recovery of valuations in the game industry

In June 2016, the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued the Notice on the Administration of Mobile Game Publishing Services (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), proposing that unapproved mobile games shall not be published and operated online. Since then, the version number has ushered in a wave of explosive growth.

According to the statistics of the surging news reporter, the cumulative number of domestic and imported online game versions issued in 2017 was 9368, in 2018 it was 2064, and in 2019-2020, the number of version numbers was 1570 and 1405 respectively. In 2021, the number of game versions that have been reviewed is only 755, and the number of version numbers shows a significant downward trend year by year.

Previously, the game version number also experienced a round of suspension of distribution: due to institutional reforms, the version number was suspended for 9 months from March 2018 and resumed in December 2018. Between the issuance of the Notice and the first round of suspension of distribution, there was a peak period in the number of game versions: according to statistics, the number of version numbers issued between July 2016 and March 2018 accounted for 68% of the total number of game versions that have been reviewed in the past 11 years.

"The number of version numbers during that period can be seen as wild growth, and in the past two years, with the tightening of industry policies, including the formulation of relevant norms, the total number of version numbers issued has also reached the stage of gradual regulation." A brokerage analyst told the surging news reporter. "For the entire industry, the restart of the version number actually means that a new round of competition will be ushered in." In the context of total volume regulation, if you want to apply for the scarce resource of the version number, under the premise of considering the compliance of the game content, you can only take the lead in getting the version number to improve the quality, and in this context, it will also promote the healthy development of the entire game industry. ”

Judging from the attitude of the capital market, the overall confidence in the game industry is still shown. China Merchants Securities Research Report shows that with the expected opening of the later version of the restart, it is expected that the game sector will usher in the first round of rebound. Game out-of-sea, meta-universe and VR/AR games will become the core driving main line of this year's game sector.

China Merchants Securities believes that compared with the chaotic order of the game industry around 2018 and the lack of supervision of special categories of games such as chess and cards, the overall order of the current game industry is better. And all game companies actively embrace supervision and implement regulatory requirements efficiently and strictly. Under strong supervision, the protection of high-quality game products can also be achieved.

Guojin Securities analyzed in the research report that the valuation of game companies is currently at a historically low level, and it pays attention to the recovery of the valuation center of high-quality game companies. For example, the game companies represented by Tencent are still at a low valuation level, and with the resumption of the issuance of version numbers and the continuous advancement of games going to sea, the assets of high-quality game companies can be further laid out.

It is worth noting that including the above two securities companies, a number of research reports have almost unanimously shown interest in overseas business. One of the game companies that won the version number, Lu Zhenyan, chairman of Gigabit, also said at the performance meeting recently that at this stage, the company requires that its themes can be released overseas for new products.

"High-quality going to sea is still the main line of investment, paying attention to the internationalization process of game listed companies." Under the background of traffic shortage and total volume control, the growth of the domestic game market has slowed down, and large-scale, high-quality domestic games going overseas are more in line with the cultural output orientation, at the same time, compared with the platform going to sea, games as content products are also facing smaller overseas regulatory risks. Brokerage research report analysis said.