A few days ago, the game giant Shenzhou Taiyue released its annual report. From the perspective of financial information, relying on the deep cultivation of the SLG track, high-quality games, and long-term operation strategy, Shenzhou Taiyue will make a lot of money in 2023.
For the whole year of 2023, Shenzhou Taiyue achieved an operating income of 5.962 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.06%, and a net profit of 880 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 65.5%, a net increase of 70%.
In terms of business, Shenzhou Taiyue mainly includes software and information technology services and Internet game business. Among them, the annual revenue of the game business reached 4.497 billion yuan, which was the main source of revenue, accounting for 75.43% of the revenue.
The revenue of Shenzhou Taiyue's game business mainly comes from shell games. In 2013, Shenzhou Taiyue acquired Shellwood Games by issuing shares to all shareholders of Tianjin Shellwood and paying cash for a transaction consideration of 1.215 billion yuan.
In the 9 years after the acquisition, the compound annual growth rate of revenue exceeded 40%, and the compound annual growth rate of net profit exceeded 25%, becoming the "cash cow" of Shenzhou Taiyue.
Focusing on the R&D and operation of SLG games, "creating a small number of high-quality products and long-term operation", under this business philosophy, in 2023, Shellwood Games will make a lot of gains in the global market.
In the "2023 Overseas Revenue Ranking of Chinese Mobile Game Publishers" released by Sensor Tower, Shellwood Games ranked 7th, up 1 place year-on-year. Its games, "Age of Origins" and "War and Order", are also on the "2023 China Mobile Game Overseas Rankings", ranking 8th and 24th respectively.
According to the annual report of Shenzhou Taiyue, "Age of Origins" and "War and Order" contributed 3.154 billion yuan and 1.135 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 95.35% of the game business revenue, which were launched in 2018 and 2016 respectively.
In the SLG track, it can be said that the shell wood game is strong. However, in addition to SLG, Shellwood Games has also tested the waters to expand into other game categories.
On September 22, 2022, Shellwood Games quietly launched a match-3 + two-dimensional game "Puzzles &Girls". According to public information, "Puzzles &Girls" is a match-3 RPG game with the theme of a ship girl and a two-dimensional painting style, and players can choose different ship girls to form a team to complete the mission of exploring space and resist the invasion of foreign enemies.
However, after the launch of "Puzzles &Girls", it did not make much splash in the market.
At the same time, in February last year, Shellwood Games also launched a turn-based + simulation management game "Journey Untold". According to APPmagic data, since its launch, Journey Untold has earned less than $5,000.
On the new track, unlike the quietly launched "Puzzles &Girls" and "Journey Untold", there is a product that has been mentioned many times in the annual report.
In May last year, at the 2022 annual results briefing, Shenzhou Taiyue said that two products have entered the late production stage and are expected to be the first to be released overseas in 2023. The two products with high hopes are "Codename Everland" and "Codename Dreamland".
Codename Everland is an innovative idle card game that combines card combat, management simulation, and strategy. After the project was established in February 2021, "Codename Everland" has been mentioned many times in the financial report, which shows the degree of internal attention.
However, judging from the information disclosed in the 2023 annual report, "Codename Everland", which was once highly expected internally, has been cut in half.
In the 2023 annual report, Shenzhou Taiyue disclosed that there are three game products under development, namely "Codename Everland", "Codename Dreamland" and "Codename LOA".
Among them, the project status of "Codename Everland" has been changed from "under development" to "impaired" in the semi-annual report.
"During the project testing period, the market feedback and core parameters did not meet expectations, so that the possibility of investment in the foreseeable future is expected to be recovered is very small, and the project will not be launched after comprehensive evaluation", as for the reason for the cut of "Code Name Everland", Shenzhou Taiyue said in the annual report.
Judging from the information in the annual report, the development cost of the "Code Everland" project is about 37.28 million yuan.
"The company has two new games that are expected to be launched overseas in the second half of the year, and we have great confidence in these two games," said Shenzhou Taiyue at the annual report performance briefing.
"One is that both games are on the SLG track that we do best. The team has accumulated a wealth of experience in the SLG category for ten years;
"The second is that these two games are the best of the best games in the company after fierce internal competition, and the third is that these two games are more in-depth integration of other gameplay such as simulation management, which is very in line with the current market preferences. ”
The gaming industry is still competitive and imaginative enough. According to public information, in 2023, the global mobile game market will be about 606.27 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 1.98%.
Doing what the team is good at may be the key to coping with industry competition.