Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter Wu Liyang reported from Shanghai
During the rainy season, the game industry is also gradually recovering from the market downturn in 2023.
According to the latest data, venture capital in the gaming industry increased by 94% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2024, but correspondingly, the cost of selling mobile games remains high, making it increasingly difficult to attract players.
In terms of domestic companies, the two major A-share game giants, Perfect World and Sanqi Mutual Entertainment, have successively released annual reports, and their overall revenue is basically the same as last year, but their profits have declined to varying degrees.
Overseas, perhaps due to the influence of its old rival Microsoft, Sony has also continued to expand its territory in recent days, and recently they have set their sights on the well-known film company Paramount; on the other hand, Take-Two, a well-known game developer such as "Grand Theft Auto", has indeed announced layoffs, and the wave of layoffs in the game industry is still continuing.
In terms of e-sports, the final of the LPL Spring Playoffs came to an end, with BLG defeating TES 3:1 to win the championship, and the two teams will also participate in the Chengdu MSI Mid-Season Championship in May this year as representatives of the LPL region.
In Q1 2024, the amount of investment in the game industry increased by 94% month-on-month
According to the latest report released by Konvoy Ventures, venture capital in the game industry increased by 94% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2024, although it still decreased by 28% year-on-year, but it is still a lot better than the dismal situation in Q4 last year.
According to the report, the number of gamers in the world in 2023 will be 3.381 billion, with more than half (53%) distributed in the Asia-Pacific market, followed by MENA (Middle East and Africa), Europe, Latin America and North America.
Report: The cost of buying mobile games continues to rise year-on-year
According to the Global Gaming App Installs and Conversations Growth Report released by mobile app marketing and attribution company Adjust, global gaming app installs will drop by 2% and sessions by 7% in 2023. The good news is that game installs in Q4 2023 increased by 7% year-over-year. Throughout 2023, the increase in game acquisition costs is likely to be the biggest contributor to the overall drop in installs, as high acquisition costs have led to a decrease in user acquisition overall.
Perfect World: In 2023, it will achieve revenue of 7.791 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent company of 491 million yuan
On the afternoon of April 15th, Perfect World (002624. SZ) announced its 2023 annual results. According to the data, the company's annual revenue was 7.791 billion yuan, which was basically the same as the previous year. In terms of profit, there was a significant decline, with the annual net profit attributable to the parent company of 491 million yuan, down 64.31% year-on-year, and the non-net profit of 210 million yuan, down 69.56% year-on-year.
Regarding the main factors of the decline in performance, Perfect pointed out in the financial report that during the reporting period, affected by the R&D cycle of game products, the company launched fewer new games, and several games in operation continued to achieve long-term operation through content updates and fine marketing, but due to the impact of the natural life cycle, the turnover decreased compared with 2022, and the corresponding performance contribution decreased year-on-year.
Nancai Comments: In addition to the online game business, Perfect is also actively looking for more growth points in 2023. In 2023, China's e-sports industry will usher in unprecedented development opportunities with the convening of the Hangzhou Asian Games. In the Asian Games, the representatives of the Chinese team ranked first in the medal list of Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports events with 4 golds and 1 bronze, including a gold medal won by the "Dota" project.
In addition, in the context of the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, more and more gaming companies are choosing to use this technology to empower their workflows. After establishing the AI center in 2022, Perfect will also make a further layout of the technology in 2023. According to the financial report, led by the AI center, the company has applied AI technology to the R&D pipeline, including art, programming, planning, operation, security, testing and other core links, covering intelligent NPCs, intelligent game assistants, scene modeling, AI painting, AI plots, AI dubbing and other aspects.
Sanqi Mutual Entertainment: The annual revenue was basically the same as that of the previous year, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 26.01% year-on-year
On the evening of April 19, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment (002555. SZ) announced its 2023 annual results. According to the data, the company's annual revenue was 16.547 billion yuan, basically the same as the previous year. In terms of net profit, the net profit attributable to the parent company for the whole year was 2.659 billion yuan, down 10.01% year-on-year, and the non-net profit was 2.497 billion yuan, down 13.38% year-on-year.
On the same day, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment also released its performance forecast for the first quarter of 2024. In Q1, the company is expected to make a profit of 6 to 650 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 16.08% to 22.54%, and an increase of 30% to 40% month-on-month.
Regarding the performance in the first quarter of 2024, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment said that it was mainly due to the excellent performance of a number of games launched in 2023, and the company continued to increase traffic delivery, which led to a significant increase in sales expenses in the first quarter. Since the new game is in the early stage of promotion, the corresponding sales expense growth rate will be higher than the operating income growth rate at this stage, which will have a phased impact on the sales expense rate during the reporting period.
Nancai Comments: It is worth noting that as a game manufacturer integrating research and operation, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment has also accumulated a relatively rich product reserve.
According to the performance report, the company focuses on the main business of games, on the one hand, it continues to expand the boundaries of self-research capabilities, deeply cultivates the core category track, and reserves a number of self-developed mobile games. On the other hand, through investment empowerment and business support, the company has deeply bound with a number of high-quality R&D providers such as Yiyu Network and Yanqu Network, combined with agency, customization and other ways to enrich the company's high-quality product supply and deepen the diversified product layout.
It is reported that the company has reserved more than 40 self-developed or agent mobile games, covering MMORPG, SLG, cards, simulation management, placement RPG, casual puzzle and other genres, which are expected to be launched in the global market one after another.
Sony joins the bid to acquire Paramount
Recently, Sony is reportedly in talks with Apollo Global Investment Management on a joint acquisition of Paramount. As a world-renowned film production and distribution company, Paramount holds the IP rights of well-known movies such as "SpongeBob SquarePants", "Top Gun", "Yellowstone" and "Super Sonic", as well as streaming platforms such as Nickelodeon, Showtime and MTV. The acquisition, if completed, will make up for Sony's shortcomings in first-party streaming content production.
Take-Two announced layoffs
Recently, Take-Two, a well-known American game company and publisher of series such as GTA, announced that it will lay off 5% of about 579 employees and cancel a number of game development projects. Mr Take-Two said the plan, which had been approved by the board, also called for "efficiencies" across the business and improved margins.
BLG夺得2024LPL春季赛冠军
In the just-concluded 2024 League of Legends Spring Finals, the BLG team defeated the TES team 3:1 and successfully won the first spring championship in the club's history.
Notably, the 2024 Mid-Season Championship (MSI) will be held in Chengdu, China, May 1-19, marking the first time Riot Games has hosted a League of Legends Global Tournament in Chengdu, where BLG and TES will also be the two teams MSI will represent the LPL region.
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