Text ▍ Chen Bo
2021 is crucial for me. This year, I entered the year of confusion, and in the process of continuous self-cultivation, I also ushered in the 8th anniversary of the company.
Looking back on these 8 years, I have always been full of emotions, so today I will no longer talk about technology-related topics. With this article, I would like to talk about the changes that have touched me deeply in the process of starting my own business in the past few years.
one
Changes in the gaming industry
Everything in the world is not immutable, it is always going around between change and invariance, and the most important thing in these changes is to find the right direction of the times. The gaming industry has always been an industry that is constantly evolving in the change of technology and traffic, which is reflected in the changes in our company in the past 8 years.
In 2013, Miaoju was just established, when we were just a company based on page games, although the mobile game market had improved slightly at that time, but page games were still the main force occupying Internet traffic. So, we adapted to the times and opened our prelude with a page game.
However, the changes of the times always make it impossible to understand in advance, and around 2016, the page game market tended to be depressed, and mobile games began to become unstoppable. In order to cater to the changes in the market, we have also undergone several transformations, first from a page game company to a mobile game company. Later, because of the prevalence of the sea tide, we changed from a company that mainly distributed domestically to a company that mainly issued overseas. In just 8 years, the transformation is very big.
It can be said that the changes in our company are closely related to the changes in the game industry, and it is not difficult to see from these changes that the update iteration of the game platform is very rapid, so as an entrepreneur in the game industry, I have been constantly emphasizing that people engaged in our industry should always be vigilant, foresee the trend of the times in advance, and search for the next generation of technology platforms.
two
Changes in the rules of the game market
In recent years, going to sea has become the most important development direction of Chinese games. For Chinese games, going to sea is not only a follower of the development of the trend of the times, but also a compliance with domestic policy changes.
With the gradual tightening of game version numbers, strong control has become an inevitable problem for domestic game distribution. In the past two years, the number of new editions approved every year is about 1,000, and less than half of the products that can be truly legally launched. Of the thousands of game companies across the country, each of the legally available games has reached the single digits. In such a situation that is not very clear, if a game company wants to rely on domestic publishing products to support performance, it is really difficult to speak in good conscience. Coupled with the fact that the competition in the domestic market has reached a white-hot stage, the game going to sea has become an excellent path for Chinese games to seek development, and at the same time, Chinese game manufacturers have also ushered in an opportunity to truly compete with the global game market.
In fact, not only the game industry is going to sea, with the acceleration of China's reform and opening up process and the growth of China's comprehensive strength, in recent years, all walks of life are making the sea, games are just in line with the trend to become a member of the sea army.
The road to sea has also accumulated a lot of fruit for Chinese games, and in September this year alone we ushered in a big news. According to Sensor Tower store intelligence data, in September 2021, the global revenue of Miha's mobile terminal exceeded $341 million, ranking first in the global mobile game revenue list. Among them, China's iOS revenue accounted for 31.6%, followed by the US market with 21.7%, and the Japanese market ranked 3rd with 21%.
In addition, the performance of Chinese games overseas in the whole year last year was also very good, with a total of 37 Chinese mobile games in overseas market revenue of more than 100 million US dollars in 2020, and the total revenue of the TOP30 mobile game products in the App Store and Google Play reached 9.24 billion US dollars, an increase of 47% compared with 6.3 billion US dollars in 2019. For example, NetEase's "Wilderness Action" has also dominated the list of such game powers in Japan for many years. All In player ByteDance's acquisition of the game company Mu Hitomi Technology also used a "Endless Showdown" to occupy the MOBA game market in Southeast Asian countries with an absolute advantage. The overall global market size of China's game industry has exceeded 20 billion US dollars, far ahead of all Chinese cultural products.
From the perspective of the industry, we can see that the changes in China's game industry are very rapid, and the subversiveness of each change is very strong. What makes me particularly sigh is that our company has experienced a lot of ups and downs in the past 8 years, but it can still survive the changes with its tenacious vitality, and many of the small partners who do business with us have left the game industry, and the hardships of insisting on making games are only understood by ourselves.
three
The game finally qualifies to deal with the capital markets
Miaoju this company is a lucky person, from the beginning of the birth with the "golden key", in the first time of its establishment has won the favor of the top domestic capital.
In the 8 years since its establishment, we have also dealt with many listed companies, and we have also experienced a tide of game capitalization from 2014 to 2017. In the process, some companies have seized the opportunity to become a member of the tide of capitalization, and some companies have unfortunately missed the ebb and flow of this tide, but there are only a few companies that can really go steadily in the process of game capitalization.
At present, the most successful A-share companies are Century Huatong, 37 Interactive Entertainment, Perfect World and Gigabit, and the remaining nearly 100 listed game companies, most of which are not particularly smooth.
I really feel a lot of emotions when I mention this matter, especially in the ups and downs of Miaoju Neng in these 8 years, I can see through many temptations with a relatively calm attitude, and also avoid many big pits, and finally successfully listed in South Korea last year, which is very valuable to me personally and the company. Although the achievements we have now are not enough to rival other listed companies, it is also a good answer.
shop
Always put the product first
After the game industry has experienced a capital reshuffle and eliminated too many bubbles and impetuosity, the current game industry has basically returned to its original intention, not too many people are willing to talk about how to operate capital, and the focus on the return to business and game products itself has become the consensus in the circle.
We've been talking about which is king, channels and traffic? The debate over this issue has never stopped. It wasn't until after this round of changes that everyone suddenly realized that the real king should be the product. Whether it is R&D, publishing or channels, high-quality products in the game industry are the only hard power that has a say.
Games themselves are content-driven industries, and only good products can be recognized by users, even if there may be some fog that will make everyone confused in the short term. But after the baptism of the cycle, the status of the product is still unshakable. Product is king has now become the consensus of the industry, all of us are determined to endure loneliness, overcome the boring research and development process, carefully ponder every detail, polish and polish everything to product-centric This is the king.
Every time I speak in the company, I constantly emphasize the importance of the product, so that everyone puts the product first, and it is the happiest thing to create some excellent products as a gamer.
five
2 jobs of the company's helmsman
As the helmsman of the company, I mainly do 2 aspects of work:
On the one hand, the company itself as a product is constantly adjusted, so that the company can introduce more excellent talents with a more reasonable structure, and establish a long-term and effective incentive system, so that excellent talents continue to grow at the same time, and ultimately allow the company to operate with higher efficiency.
Such an organization has a strong self-driving ability, and this year we have been trying to run the company in this way, and overall the results have been good. I went abroad twice this year, counting the time of quarantine, almost 4 months without the company, but the company is still operating very efficiently, I am very proud of it.
On the other hand, it is my second important task to set up a project with the company's team according to the characteristics of the market environment and our own capabilities.
I will be deeply involved in the establishment of each product, and I will seriously think about how the product and user base should be positioned. How to achieve the technical means of the product? How should the art style be expressed? How is the numerical framework of the product built? I believe that only if my team and I polish each product with a meticulous approach, we will attract more users and obtain better reputation and benefits.
This afternoon, I also gave a short speech at the company's 8th anniversary celebration ceremony, reporting to everyone that we have prepared at least 10 products for the upcoming 2022, which is where we can do a good job in game publishing in the future.
In the next 1 year, I will still do my own work in the above 2 core aspects, build the company's large product more powerful, and at the same time polish every small game product released by our company more exquisitely, becoming a well-known excellent work in the industry.
Looking back on the past 8 years, although each of Miaoju's works has flaws, because we are never ambiguous in the face of products, each product has a very clear positioning and high degree of differentiation, and can make breakthroughs and innovations in the accumulation of predecessors. In the past, although we have gone through some detours and paid a lot of tuition, in the next few years we will focus on the two core points of doing a good job and attracting excellent talents, and let the company get the best results in the change of the times!