Palmfun Technology has bet on the future on the SLG track, and the research and development products have been unveiled one after another.
Recently, the company is more eager than ever to come up with some results. A month ago, Palmfun Technology released the first half of the financial report, the company's revenue was only 458 million, down 29.28% year-on-year, and the "first half of the year" revenue has declined for three consecutive times.
SLG is a sector where the company is pinning its hopes. With a loss of 1.2 billion yuan in 2021, Palmqu Technology immediately announced that it would adjust its organizational structure and focus on breakthroughs in SLG game products, hoping to focus on and make breakthroughs in the SLG category.
Now Shellwood Software and Dian Dian Interactive have once again come out with explosive models in the SLG track, which makes the pressure of Palmfun Technology more and more. The company can't wait to try the genre represented by each SLG hit to make sure it doesn't miss a chance to turn around.
3 models captured market hot spots, and 1 model stopped research and development halfway
After focusing on the layout for a year, Palmfun Technology urgently wanted to come up with products to prove the correctness of exploring the SLG track. The company mentions three SLGs in its semi-annual report: "code H", "code M" and "code S".
Only Codename M (City of Crime: Gang Wars) has been released, and 2 other new products have been secretly tested in recent times.
1, "The Last Rafts": Benchmarking against this year's new hits
The Last Rafts is a sea drifting SLG that combines elements of gameplay with simulated management. If you feel that the game theme is novel just listening to the description, you will have a strong sense of déjà vu after entering the game - The Last Rafts gameplay content is almost entirely punctuated and interactive "Whiteout Survival".
In fact, "The Last Rafts" probably didn't look like this at first. Combined with the game test information, it is inferred that this game is most likely the "Codename H" in the company's announcement, which was first exposed in April this year, and showed that it was developed on the basis of the underlying basis of the original SLG project "Codename O". The reason for the major change in the middle is the sudden explosion in the market.
左：《The Last Rafts》 右：《Whiteout Survival》
Earlier, when playing the interactive "Whiteout Survival", the highlight of the gameplay is the relatively new urban construction gameplay.
The Last Rafts offers a similar gameplay experience - the game incorporates idle-type simulation gameplay, and players can continue to produce resources without operation; Each production building needs to send residents to work, residents will get sick or die due to living conditions, and there is a fixed work schedule every day; The fresh water converter in the middle of the main city is capable of continuously producing water resources, and its efficiency depends on the weather, day and night...
Originally, "Whiteout Survival" based on "Ice Age" excavated a new type of SLG, and now "The Last Rafts" wants to put different packages into different packages and eat gameplay bonuses together.
Of course, The Last Rafts also tried to add a little new content. For example, floating resources will appear on the ocean in the game, and players can manipulate characters to harvest. This game may help improve player retention by allowing players to have more actionable content in the early stages and avoiding user churn due to interruptions in the pace of the game as much as possible.
The game has not changed at the level of SLG gameplay, the overall core framework follows the COK-like type, and the level battles use the gameplay of placing cards, and the specific content is consistent with "Whiteout Survival".
As a reference object, "Whiteout Survival" was launched in March this year, and the revenue from overseas continued to rise, driving the revenue of self-developed games of Diandian Interactivity to increase by more than 50%. According to SensorTower, the game earned more than $31 million in July and maintained a 10% month-on-month growth in August, ranking among the global SLG revenue champions that month.
At that time, Palmfun Technology foresaw the opportunities contained in this gameplay, and the earning power of "Whiteout Survival" was indeed unexpected. However, it is difficult to determine whether the market will be able to accommodate a second follower.
2, "The Last Ark": Similar products ushered in the second spring after 4 years of operation
"The Last Ark" opened overseas testing in August this year, the game also adopts the theme of the shipwreck, and in the main city, it uses the Vault-type horizontal board construction gameplay, and it is indeed worth trying to spread the "underground shelter" theme to the "Shelter Under the Sea".
The gameplay of the main city construction is not uncommon, mainly around the scene to continuously unlock buildings down, and integrate simple simulation business gameplay elements into it. The Last Ark's business simulation features idle placement elements – each building requires heroes and workers to work, and workers' productivity depends on the availability of food resources. In terms of gameplay experience, The Last Ark and The Last Rafts have some similarities.
The Last Ark uses the COK-like framework as the SLG gameplay framework and doesn't do much innovation. In addition, the game's battle levels use the idle card gameplay, and what is special is that this gameplay also incorporates the element of instant elimination, which deepens the player's depth of operation and brings a stronger game strategy.
At present, the explosive game with the "Refuge" element in the market is "Last Fortress: Underground", which was released by Longchuang Yuedong in 2021. From July 2022 to the present, the game has basically remained between 20~60 on the iOS best-selling list in the United States. According to SensorTower, Last Fortress ranked 13th on the July revenue list.
The market potential of the same gameplay has been proven. However, although the themes of the two belong to the "post-apocalypse" genre, "The Last Ark" does not have the "zombie" elements of "Last Fortress", it is worth noting that this game will combine the marine theme to play the creative buying volume.
City of Crime: Gang Wars: The first SLG was in the works for 3 years
"City of Crime: Gang Wars" is the only SLG officially launched by Palmfun Technology (hereinafter referred to as "City of Crime"), and it has been in preparation for a long time.
According to the announcement of Palmfun Technology, the company established the first SLG product in March 2019 and tested it in November 2021, and chose to continue to optimize because the retention rate did not meet expectations. According to public information, the only SLG that the company tested that year was City of Crime: Gang Wars. The final game landed in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea in April 2022, and was launched in the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets in August this year, and the temporary results were not outstanding.
City of Crime uses a gangster theme and is still a regular COK-like SLG. In recent years, many SLG manufacturers have tried to join the competition of gangster themes, including FunPlus, Leyi, IGG and so on. Big manufacturers have the ability to produce more immersive plot animation and gameplay content, and it is easier to see the gap between "City of Crime" and the above-mentioned big factory products in comparison.
The highlight of City of Crime is the level combat, which uses a roguelike RPG gameplay similar to Bullet Case Strike Force, and is also used in a bank-robbing plot early in the game. This part was apparently added after the mow roguelike gameplay exploded, and it also gave City of Crime some differentiation
Now that Palmfun Technology is willing to officially launch the game, it is speculated that the new content does have a certain effect on improving the retention data.
However, whether the retention problem can be completely solved, or whether the mow roguelike gameplay is suitable for SLG, may need to be questioned. In terms of game experience, the fun of mowing roguelike gameplay is inevitably linked to "growth", which also leads to the fact that the time of level battles cannot be too short (about 3 minutes in the game) and cannot have placement elements. As a result, the level gameplay has become no longer light, and when the experience is not good enough, the hot gameplay has become a minus.
At present, Palmfun Technology has not given up this game, and the company said that it expects to increase investment in the second half of the year according to the commissioning situation, and there will be a possibility of turning over in the future.
Battle for Ascalon: The only ROK-like product was cut
"Battle for Ascalon" (also known as World of Asterra< Dragons Rise>) is a Western fantasy SLG owned by Palmfun Technology, which was tested in the first half of 2022. This year, the company revealed in its annual report that the magic theme self-created IP SLG "Codename O" project has stopped development, and related game assets have been transferred to "Codename H" to continue research and development, which means that "Battle for Ascalon" has no hope of coming out.
Judging from early test videos recorded by players, Battle for Ascalon uses a ROK-like gameplay framework, retaining infinite scaling and free marching content. The game combines Western dragon elements in the story theme, and as part of the team configuration, more content is designed in terms of development, and there are not too many obvious differences.
After the suspension of the development of "Battle for Ascalon", there is currently no ROK-like product reserve in Palmfun Technology, which may mean that although the project has accumulated research and development experience, it may not leave too many game assets that can actually be used.
"Business reform" is more radical than expected
In its 2022 annual report, Palmfun Technology said that it would enter the mini game market in China and focus on SLG products overseas. This doesn't seem exactly the same as business expansion, but more like a trade-off. Perhaps it also means that the company is gradually abandoning its nostalgia for card games and MMORPGs.
From the expression of Palmqu Technology in the announcement in the past two years, you can feel the change. The products under development mentioned in the 2022 semi-annual report include 2 SLG and card products under development "Code Hi (guess yes)" <非匿名指令>and "Hypnos"; The only products under development mentioned in the 2023 half-year report are Mini Games that are not mentioned and SLGs for overseas purposes.
Today, Palmfun Technology has a clearer direction, and the company image of the early years is gradually moving away.
If the company's transformation needs a fuse, it is probably because in 2021, the four subsidiaries of Play Crab Technology, Upstream Information, Tianma Time and Space, and Dynamic Network Pioneer were all frustrated, and now they are looking for a way out:
- Play Crab Technology posted its first loss since its consolidated statement in 2021, and revenue from online card games continued to shrink. At present, only one subsidiary of Play Crab Technology is exploring the SLG field. Interestingly, the company mentioned that it will "continue to dynamically adjust the development strategy of SLG game projects", and speculate that stopping the development of "Battle for Ascalon" also falls within the scope of dynamic adjustments.
- Upstream Information's product under development still failed to meet the issuer requirements after multiple debugging in 2021, and the issuance time could not be set as of mid-2022. At present, the company chooses to streamline product types, and the products under research focus on the mini game track. The app version of "Those That Need to Be Guarded" was launched in August 2022 and announced its discontinuation in June this year, and the game entered the best-selling list (top 99) on WeChat Mini Games.
- Tianma Space also suffered its first loss since the consolidated statement in 2021, and the MMORPG that invested 80 million yuan in research and development for 2 years was originally planned to be launched that year, but because of poor test data, it could only choose to stop loss, cancel the third-party sole generation issuance in China, and cancel the overseas launch plan. At present, the track where Tianma Time and Space is located has not been adjusted, and the PC side of "Pot Guard Battle" has been additionally developed (a soft book was registered this year).
- As of 2021, Dynamic Network Pioneer has shrunk its scale for four consecutive years, and its business has continued to decline, and there has been no obvious business adjustment so far.
The reason is that the cards and MMORPGs that are most familiar to Palmfun Technology are no longer strong, and it is more difficult for new products to meet the company's development needs.
In the past, most of the overseas products of Palmqu Technology were sold domestically and re-exported, and the company could foresee the contraction of the overseas business under the circumstances of the domestic progress. Last year, "One Punch Man: The Strongest Man" and "Miracle: Awakening" were almost cut off from overseas, and the new main force at sea was taken up by "National Miracle 2" (launched in China in 2021), but it was still a long way from the peak level of "One Punch Man: The Strongest Man" that year.
From the perspective of revenue composition, the revenue growth of Palmfun Technology in 2020 will come from the overseas business. If it weren't for the overseas revenue of "One Punch Man: The Strongest Man", the company would have seen a more obvious sustained revenue decline.
This makes the company attach great importance to overseas markets, but suffers from poor data on products under research and does not specialize in overseas products.
SLG became the best choice at the time. It happened that the company began to invest in the research of SLG when it was difficult to operate, and simply chose a path to go to the dark.
Such a sharp turn inevitably requires a big change, and the speed of layoffs is always faster than recruitment. The company decreased from 558 million in 2021 to 393 million in 2022 (down 29.6% year-on-year), while the number of R&D personnel decreased from 962 to 620 (down 35.5% year-on-year). Until the first half of this year, the situation of cost reduction and efficiency improvement seems to be continuing, and the R&D investment in the first half of the year was only 144 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 31.5%, due to the cost decline caused by the reduction of the number of people.
So far, the painful period of palm fun technology is probably not over.
The future is uncertain
From August 2020, the share price of Palmfun Technology fell significantly until it began to soar around May this year. Part of the reason is that this period of time announced the previous year's earnings, and although last year's revenue declined, profits turned into profits. Without product support, the stock price soon retreated.
There is no breakthrough in products, and the company has tried its best to stabilize the confidence of the outside world.
The first is to embrace the AIGC ecosystem. This year, Palmfun Technology has successively reached cooperation with several AI business-related companies, such as becoming the first batch of ecological partners of Wenyan Yixin; Reached a strategic cooperation with Beijing Yumi Interactive Entertainment to jointly develop an AI game creation platform; Reached a strategic cooperation with Walker AI to promote the application of AIGC technology in games.
But back to the product level, the time left for Palmfun Technology will only become less and less, and the company needs to be more anxious to take out the finished product.