Under the background of strengthening supervision and guidance in 2021, China’s game market is changing. In the era of high-quality products, the product layout has impacted the whole track, which has become a must for game manufacturers this year. At the same time, games are not an isolated industry. They must actively integrate into the new wave of digital economy development and show their positive potential for the future. This may become a real card for the further development of game enterprises in the future.
1. The era of content as the king has officially arrived
According to the report on China’s game industry in 2021 released at the annual meeting of China’s game industry, the actual sales revenue of China’s game market in 2021 was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 17.826 billion yuan over last year, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%; China has 666 million game users, with a year-on-year increase of 0.22%, and the number of users is becoming saturated. The report points out that with the implementation of new anti addiction regulations and the gradual deepening of unprotected work, the structure of game users will further tend to be healthy and reasonable.
When the number of game users is close to saturation, it means that it is difficult for market growth to ask for space from new increments, and stock competition has become the mainstream of the market. In other words, after explosive barbaric growth, the development of the game industry has been in a gradual trend, and the content has really begun to have a certain voice.
Content is king, not just relying on the market to move from increment to stock. As early as seven or eight years ago, some people in the industry predicted that “the era of channel being the king in the game industry has passed, and the determination of product life and death is the king in the future.” However, these predictions are obviously too early today. Until 2020 and 2021, MIHA you’s original God and Lilith’s awakening of nations have sprung up, successfully bypassed the channel and fired the first shot in the war of game content and channel, which really proved that the discourse power of product channel has been rebuilt.
At present, the competition in China’s game market has officially entered the stock era. Manufacturers can attract users by relying on high-quality content. Globally, the relationship between channels and manufacturers is reshaping, and manufacturers do not have to be subject to the traditional inclined sharing mechanism, such as 37 sharing, 50-50 sharing, etc. This year, the percentage of some channel providers has dropped to 20% ~ 30%.
With the formation of the relationship between a new generation of manufacturers and channels, the game era representing the king of content has come. It can be predicted that manufacturers with strong R & D capabilities and sufficient product strength will hold the most important card in this era.
China’s major game manufacturers pursuing technology still adhere to the road of self-development engine innovation, continue to catch up with the international advanced level, and systematically improve the level of the game industry. Such as Netease and Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) are at the forefront of self-research engines. Only technical talents with deep technical reserves and high quality can quickly show their leading technical capabilities to their users in advance.
2. Subdivide the track into a competitive place for big manufacturers
According to the analysis report on the trend and potential of China’s game industry in 2022 released by Gamma data recently, advantage segments, IP, talents, cloud games, host games and overseas markets will be several important potential areas of China’s game market. Among them, the advantage breakdown item is ranked first.
Subdivided categories refer to areas with development potential, including but not limited to dimensions such as playing method, theme and painting style, as well as specific labels such as SLG, quadratic element, roguelike and leisure games. According to the report, the advantageous segments have revealed their development potential through word-of-mouth and customer acquisition. For example, the scale of the mobile game market with the secondary label has exceeded 20 billion yuan, and the compound growth rate of the SLG head market has exceeded 25% in recent years.
In the first half of 2021, Tencent, Netease and Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) three manufacturers that play an important role in China’s game market took turns to launch a new round of intensive reserve products. A total of nearly 100 new games will be gradually launched in the next two or three years. On the whole, the three future products are basically characterized by complete categories and excellent fist products, and the impact includes sub categories such as open world, secondary element and women’s orientation. Thus, the whole track has become another card in the competition of game manufacturers this year.
On December 16, Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) ‘s “magic tower” mobile game experienced four tests and finally ushered in the full platform public beta. After pre downloading, it ranked first in the app store free general list and dominated the list for 6 consecutive days. On the first day of the public beta, it ranked fifth in the best-selling list and 50 million in running water. The next day of the public beta, it climbed to third in the best-selling list.
From the perspective of the market audience, the segmentation demand is in a stage of continuous generalization and expansion, and there is no case that a product eats up the whole user group. If the manufacturer’s products can seize different degrees of innovation opportunities, they can accurately circle some groups in the subdivided audience, and use a new product to establish a new integrated play method and theme of the product, it is naturally possible to tear a hole from the category influence of the old products.
Once a company launches a topical dark horse game, the whole industry will study it from the inside out and compete with it on the same stage. This situation also drives the fierce trend of the whole Chinese game going to sea.
According to the above industry report, in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China’s independently developed games in the overseas market reached US $18.013 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16.59%. Although the growth rate decreased by about 17% year-on-year compared with that in 2020, the average growth rate of China’s game share at sea has increased steadily in the past five years.
3. Actively integrate into the new wave of digital economy development
In the stock era, new games still have advantages in attracting new users, while old IP, which has entered a stable development period, should find ways to maintain players’ passion and realize long-term operation. In this case, IP linkage is undoubtedly the most efficient form. There are more and more examples in 2021.
Universal Studios this year’s new Harry Porter, the magic awakening, is launched on the theme park of Beijing Universal Studios resort, mobile games, which can be seen as a trend of the wind, opening a hot start with the strong IP attribute of the NetEase. IP linkage effectively realizes circle breaking transformation and reduces the promotion cost of the game.
In addition to directly driving revenue, IP is also expected to expand its influence radiation radius. At present, the existing products are based on IP layout, animation, surrounding and other fields, and the annual revenue of IP derivatives reaches tens of millions of yuan, realizing the two-way expansion of revenue source and IP vitality.
For example, as a phenomenal product, Tencent’s “glory of the king” not only announced a series of films, musicals and derivative product plans, but also showed all kinds of artistic creation around the king’s IP, which has derived a grand world with openness. Tencent bluntly hopes to build the king IP into an emotional link for a new generation.
At present, the game has gone beyond the simple entertainment demand, but as one of the cultural media with strong communication power and high recognition of young people, it has been valued by game companies and the outside world. Games can not only spread traditional culture, but also reduce the cost of digital innovation in society.
Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) in its long-term product “Zhuxian hand tour”, it cooperated with Poly Art Museum to digitally restore the four animal heads of cattle, tiger, monkey and pig in the bronze statue of the animal heads of the twelve zodiac animals in the Old Summer Palace in the game. In other words, if you want a young man to understand this history, the effect of visiting the museum is similar to playing the tour of killing immortals.
In addition, Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) has also realized game based real scene immersive cultural tourism experience in Nianhua Bay scenic spot in Wuxi. For this kind of empowerment, Perfect World Co.Ltd(002624) is summarized as “cultural and creative thinking”, and is actively developing all kinds of integration and innovation.
In the future, the most important thing to expand IP is to improve the game IP core and culture. This year’s annual meeting of the game industry also stressed that games are not an isolated industry, but must be multi enabled and actively integrate into the new wave of digital economy development. For game enterprises and the whole game industry, how to constantly correct external prejudices and enhance social recognition and respect is a very important thing.
How well they do in this regard, for enterprises, on the one hand, depends on the depth of understanding, on the other hand, it also determines whether the positive potential will really take effect in the future and become a real card for the redevelopment of enterprises? This is worth watching.
(China Economic Net)
