Several game companies recently reported layoffs.
A few days ago, according to surging news reporters, many game companies, including station B, Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) and heart network, have laid off employees of different sizes from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022.
According to the record of investor relations activities disclosed by Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) in January this year, in 2021, the company streamlined and optimized the game team, adjusting some teams that do not fit with the company’s general direction and tone in the future. Hundreds of people have been optimized in the fourth quarter of last year.
Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) said that as of January this year, the company’s R & D team had about 4000 people, which may decline further in the follow-up. “It is expected that the optimization will reduce hundreds to 1000 people, including R & D and related departments.” After streamlining, the main force of the R & D team will focus on two relatively large directions, one is relatively traditional MMO (massively multiplayer online game) and “MMO +” direction, and the other is the multiplayer open world and card types that favor young users.
According to the calculation of up to 1000 people, it means that the layoff scale of the company’s R & D team is up to 25%.
Record of investor relations activities disclosed by Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624)
At the end of January, there was a market rumor that taptap’s parent company heart network was laying off staff, nearly one-third of the team. This news received an official response from CEO Huang Yimeng. On twitter, he admitted that there was indeed a team adjustment to increase or decrease according to the actual business needs, but “there is no so-called one size fits all”.
Huang Yimeng responded to cardiac network layoffs
In addition to the two companies that publicly disclosed their layoff plans, surging news learned that station B had also experienced some adjustment.
According to the internal staff of station B to surging journalists, there were personnel adjustments in station B from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, of which the proportion of layoffs in the game department was close to 20%, and there were a large number of layoffs in the R & D team. The year-end bonus of some employees in the game Department of station B is only half a month’s salary.
Previously, baidu also reported a wave of layoffs in the game department. Baidu responded at that time that there was a “small-scale adjustment of individual businesses”, involving a small number of personnel mobility, which was a normal business operation adjustment, not a large-scale layoff in the rumor, and the relevant adjustment had been completed before New Year’s day.
Last December, the publisher of the game “greedy blue moon” (Jiangxi greedy Information Technology Co., Ltd.) was also exposed to mass layoffs. “Afternoon tea has been cancelled since September without any notice. Layoffs have been going on in the past two months. This year’s year-end bonus and double salary have been determined not to be paid,” an employee said in a statement on social media
Why did layoffs occur in the game industry, which was widely sought after for its high salary?
Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) mentioned in the announcement that the company’s game business is in a transition period and the handover of new and old products is weak. On the one hand, the dividend of the housing economy has subsided, which has naturally reduced the flow and profits of many products to a certain extent; On the other hand, while investing in research projects, the performance of some online projects was lower than expected, including the North American project “magic Legends” closed in the second quarter of 2021 and the first mmoarpg mobile game “ares ruins”, which generated a total loss of about 400-500 million yuan.
Another reason stems from the previous large-scale expansion of the game industry. The person in charge of a game industry department disclosed to surging journalists that the talent mobility of the game industry is large, and there has been a “people grabbing war” around 2020, and many companies offer very high salaries to tap talents.
“In 2020, a company publicly said that it would recruit artists from all over the world with an annual salary of one million; the salary of TA, engine, art and other scarce posts in Shanghai game circle increased by 20% – 30%; a cutting-edge large factory did not hesitate to offer a 30W signing fee in order to recruit a Tencent planner; many HR recruiters were under the age of 30, but their annual salary was as high as 700000-800000.” He said.
By the end of 2020, Giant Network Group Co.Ltd(002558) co CEO Wu Meng also admitted at the annual meeting of the game industry that talent competition is fierce: First, everyone can dig their own fields. Second, everyone can dig their own fields more quickly than others. In fact, there is a shortage of talents in Shanghai. In fact, there are too many people to dig their own fields It’s just that you don’t dig others, and it’s not easy for bad people to dig them. “
In the view of the person in charge of the aforementioned Game Department, the fierce competition for talents is bound to test the running in between game companies and attracted talents. Whether the products match the quality of talents themselves is inevitable after a year’s reshuffle.
Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) CEO Xiao Hong once talked about the prediction of the game market in 2022 in an interview with surging journalists. He said that from the perspective of capital, the share of large companies in the industry will be relatively stable, small and medium-sized companies have more opportunities for innovation and breakthrough, and the game circle does not rule out more acquisitions and mergers.
“In the long run, the game market, like the market in film and television or other cultural and entertainment fields, may have some ups and downs, but it is basically stable, healthy and upward.” Xiao Hong said that whether in terms of users, market or capital, stable and sustainable growth will be the main tone of China’s game market in the future.
