On January 24, Liu Wen finally found his company’s name in the fourth batch of game editions announced by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, but he was not happy
Liu Wen is the founder of a mobile game company in Shenzhen. In fact, the game version he applied for has been “passed through review” as early as March 2018. According to the process, the next step is to wait for the issue number.As a result, in the online game approval information of March 2018, the trial time expired on March 28. On the 29th, Liu Wen waited for the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television to issue the “Notice on Important Issues in Game Declaration and Approval”, stating that due to institutional reforms, the release of all game editions was completely suspended and the suspension period was not notified
Time state agency adjustment, Liu Wen thought that this is only a two- or three-month suspension, and will be re-issued when the organization adjustment is completed
“After about 3 months, everyone feels that the atmosphere is not right.” A game version agent told China Entrepreneur magazine that he has submitted more than 100 games to small and medium-sized game companies. Eight months have passed, although it has been reissued, so far only three editions have been issued, and the game version number introduced overseas has not been issued. Liu Wen is also his client. “When he was docked, he said that the company had already planned to cancel, and even if he did not cancel, he had cut the R&D team and could not make changes to the product.”
And so on, the company has no financial support. Liu Wen’s company is not a case. According to incomplete statistics, the game industry’s 2018 layoffs may reach a historical peak, which may be as high as 70%, while Chengdu, the mobile capital, is even more extreme. “There is no layoffs at all. This statement, because most of them are small teams, they have closed down directly.” Li Lei, a headhunter of a headhunting company in Chengdu, said
Chengdu Tianfu Software Park is a gathering place for many game companies. Photography: Run Cheng.
Even though the issue number is quite cold, the game circle still can’t relax. The version number agent told the reporter, “The issue is now only the version number at the end of April 2018, and there is a lot of backlogs. And most of the game types are online games and large games. The fishing and board games submitted in March are not. “What makes the practitioners even more troublesome is that the length of the approval work is completely unfixed. “It can be expected that the normal situation is that the version number is obtained in 4-6 months, but now it has not returned to normal progress, feeling new Game approval is still in a state of stagnation.”
In the past 10 months, most of the game companies with more cash flow have made a transformation, and the research and development power is partially dispersed into R&D H5 and WeChat games; small companies rely on outsourcing to maintain their livelihood and survival; Some game companies that chose to go out early have escaped this change more or less
The winter story of the game industry is not over. Even after this round of big reshuffle, it must be admitted that in 2018 there were no such high-quality game products such as “Wild Action”, “Glory of the King” and “Journey Survival”. Hu Bin, a partner of Qiming Venture Partners, said, “To some extent, the game and film industry are very similar. Every year, there is still a need for big innovations to drive. Otherwise, it cannot be said that the winter has passed.”
Long holiday.
After the game was released for 3 months, many people in the game industry couldn’t sit still and wanted to know when to restart. An employee of a game company in Shenzhen said, “Many large-scale online game companies know a lot of people, and at that time they learned about the situation through various channels.”
But the feedback is all, “wait for notification.”
A lot of companies have to take precautions and take the initiative to tighten their expenses. The game is a light asset industry, and employee compensation is one of the main expenses, which bears the brunt
According to the gamma data report, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Shenzhen are the cities with the most demand for game talents in China. Among them, Chengdu game makers mainly focus on R&D, and Tencent Games, Perfect World and other big game companies are in Chengdu. There are R & D teams, but the Chengdu game industry is more of a small and medium-sized mobile game company. During this waiting period, the Chengdu game industry was greatly affected. Li Lei told the “China Entrepreneur” magazine, “We have a very good performance in the first half of last year. The demand of major companies is very strong. It is also the peak season for recruitment. It is gold, silver and silver. But from June to July, it has slowly changed, companies The layoffs are getting more and more.”
Perfect World has a research and development team in Chengdu. Photography: Chen Chunlin
The leak of house leaks is that the capital’s favor for the game industry is no longer the same. Since 2013, the game company has been regarded as a “cash cow” by the employers. Listed companies have made huge purchases. In 2013 alone, 12 A-share listed companies used more than 17.1 billion yuan. Acquired 17 game companies with an average price-to-earnings ratio of 13 times and a maximum of nearly 16 times. At that time, the game company was also the target of venture capital pursuit. According to DoNews’s “China Game Industry Investment and Financing Report 2017”, there were 140 investments and financing projects in the game industry in 2017, totaling about 14.7 billion yuan, and investment and financing of more than 100 million yuan. Since then, the single amount has reached a maximum of 2.27 billion yuan.The
Version number was suspended for the industry’s rapid freezing, which also greatly affected the valuation of the game company. The way in which listed companies chase the acquisition of the stock price of the game company has also made the regulatory authorities painstakingly determined. By October 2018, the CSRC issued two questions: “Refinancing Review Financial Knowledge Q&A” and “Refinancing Review Non-financial Knowledge Q&A”. Documents, to brokers and other intermediary agencies have identified some of the key points of refinancing. The two documents show that the funds raised by listed companies should be mainly invested in the main business. In principle, it is not allowed to invest in the film and television industry in the cross-border industry
Listed companies are not allowed to acquire game companies. The changes in the secondary market are quickly transmitted to venture capitalists. Investors have become more cautious. “In the past, when you were the hottest, you can get a demo and see the team. Financing.” Wang Xu, co-founder and chief analyst of gamma data, said, “The phenomenon will not continue until 2017. After the issue, many investors will no longer watch game projects.” According to Li Lei observed, “There are still many small game companies whose products have not yet been launched, and investors have divested and closed down directly.”
Not only small and medium-sized game companies, but large companies still have stock game support, but they are also compressing people. It is reported that a large-scale game company adopts departmental mergers, and employees compete for employment. Some experienced employees may be “optimized”. According to the previously announced school recruitment and social recruitment plans, large companies such as Tencent have also scaled down their recruitment
The version number was suspended, financing was difficult, and the acquisition was hopeless, so that the game industry that had been developing at a high speed fell into a trough overnight. The popularity of “Glory of the King” and “Eating Chicken” has led many teams to develop similar products with serious homogenization. At the same time, mobile game products also have the characteristics of fast update, strong imitation, and fast user preference conversion. They mainly rely on the “sheet metal mode” to stimulate the player to recharge, which is too fast overdraft the life cycle of the game, and is extremely dependent on continuous online. New tour
In order to obtain the version number, the industry soon appeared chaotic. The game version number agent said, “Every once or two months, there will be some bad intermediaries in the circle to release the ‘I will issue a version number, we can give you an expedited’ message, and finally the facts have not been made. “Some companies have chosen to take risks and buy or apply the old version of the qualifications to carry out the game’s shelves and operations, “but the price has probably turned 30 to 40 times.” Game agents said, “Guangdong agency’s normal price is Between 10,000 and 15,000, but some time ago, someone was circled in a circle of friends, which was 400,000. According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, the “legendary” game “Majiabao” was as high as 500,000.The
Game industry’s gray industry has also attracted the attention of higher authorities. On November 16, 2018, the National Office of the Anti-Violation and Non-Violation Working Group, the Ministry of Finance, the State Press and Publication Administration, and the National Copyright Administration issued a notice on the issuance of the “Incentives for Reporting the Work of Eliminating the Yellow and Anti-Violation”, and notified Article 7 (6) It is mentioned that if the newspapers, newspapers, bulletins, editions, licenses, etc. are involved in violations of laws and regulations, such as the implementation of the fifth item of this article, 1,000 yuan will be awarded; for cases of administrative punishment, 1,000 yuan will be given to the reporters. Reward for 5,000 yuan; for the formation of criminal cases, the whistleblower will be awarded 5,000 to 10,000 yuan
Going out to sea to survive.
Although China is the world’s largest game market, its market structure has been relatively stable. According to gamma data, the actual sales revenue of the mobile game market issued or represented by Tencent and Netease accounts for nearly 70% of the actual sales revenue of the Chinese mobile game market. According to Tencent’s share-sharing mechanism, the game that was distributed in Tencent once adopted a 1:9 share ratio (the platform operator took 90% of the revenue, and the game operator only scored 10%)
“but everyone is still very willing to let Tencent send, because it gives more than 10% of the 10%.” This is already the consensus of game practitioners
But in the face of a highly crowded market, many game makers have long since set their sights overseas. Coupled with the tighter version, the sea has become a “have” choice. People in the industry told the “Chinese Entrepreneur”, “especially Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States, the competition from the product side is much less than the domestic.” The nature of
Mobile game products is also very suitable for “going out to sea”, because the overseas distribution channels are very simple, the main ones are the application stores of Apple and Google. “It’s OK to submit it on the platform website. They need to deal with them. Their screening mechanism is mostly automated, and it can be ticked to the country, which is equivalent to one-click release to many regions.” Yan Jing, CEO of mobile game developer Yangxun Technology
In the past two years, Tencent Games has focused on the United States and the Asia-Pacific region. Netease’s Wilderness Action has chosen to deepen the Japanese market. Perfect World invests in R&D studios overseas to integrate global resources
There is also a giant network spending 30.5 billion to acquire Israeli high-tech company Playtika, and recently announced the ongoing “Zhenghe sea plan”. As far as the current project promotion action is concerned, Giant Network has completed the construction of overseas teams. This year officially launched a mobile game business
Numerous forerunners have given confidence to the industry, and the Chinese mobile game industry has begun to collectively go to sea. An interesting statement is that the domestic competitor is the only competitor encountered after going out to sea
Not only mobile games, domestic manufacturers have also launched PC games overseas. Founded in 2016, Viking Interactive is the founder of Zhou Jinyu, a serial entrepreneur who has worked for well-known game companies such as Perfect World and Kabam. At that time, there was an opportunity for the rise of VR games. At that time, there were very few VR games on the Steam platform. Zhou Jinyu himself had overseas connections. So he took the vacancy and decided to develop VR games and invest in overseas markets to seize the bonus..
Viking Interactive CMO and co-founder Liu Yuan told China Entrepreneur magazine, “The root cause is still because the game industry has reached a point of change. After 90s, 00 and other young users, they are playing. When mobile phones grow up, they know which are good things and which ones are not good. It is impossible to use the previous kind of leather handkerchiefs to set their money. This is the case at home and abroad.”
Yan Jing also saw changes in the user’s needs. On the one hand, the requirements for picture quality are constantly improving, and the rhythm that players need is accelerating. “Simplely, it is the plot and level design. The player needs a process of stimulation and coolness. “
Viking Interactive chose to add some new technology routes based on the game. At the time, they felt that VR could change the original game experience. In order to adapt to the preferences of overseas users, Yangxun Technology consciously recruited many Story planning and art designers
Although Viking Interactive did not disclose the specific results, Liu Yuan said, “We are living very well overseas, first do overseas and then do it domestically.”
Viking Interactive feels that VR can change the original gaming experience. Source: Viking Interactive official website.
This is for “survival”. China’s small and medium-sized game companies have sprung up overseas because of the results of development and innovation. Especially in South Korea, there have been many Chinese game makers relying on Korean games for a while, and according to current data, 30% of the Korean domestic list is a Chinese game. Yan Jingshen feels that in the past two years, Korean companies have paid special attention to Chinese developers and publishers. “Many Koreans will come to our company to study, take notes, and see many cases and products are very surprised.”
Yan Jing said that the producers of Korean games are mostly been majors, which means that the Korean team is led by art to develop and plan products. “They will make the appearance beautiful, but they may be weak at the planning level. The Chinese game team is basically planning to lead the art and research and development products, so it is natural to consider whether the player will play the game repeatedly, which is called playability, and then make up for the lack of art.”
Time has passed.
Even though the game version has been reissued, the era of brutal growth in the gaming industry is over
Some practitioners believe that “the recovery of the game industry may be at least 3 to 5 years, and the overall domestic and global economic situation will change, because the income of the game industry is mainly from the consumption of players, when the entire economy goes down, players Consumption in the game will be reduced.”
This also forces many small and medium game makers to look for new areas. Wang Xu said, “Because at this stage, the cost of the game and the production cycle are relatively high, and there is little room for innovation. It is difficult for many small companies to make the most popular games on the market. In this case, it is better to look for some new ones. Fields, such as film and television IP, two yuan.”.
There is also a new area that is super casual games. Wang Xu said, “This kind of game is very light, it doesn’t take too long to do it, like “Legend” also has H5 version, or like “Pirates come” This kind of game. Users do not need to use traffic at any time, and its requirements for R&D costs and R&D team are relatively moderate. You can slowly develop it here, until the experience is enough, try some higher risks, but A game with a higher income.”
Wang Xu believes that heavy games are not only highly competitive, but also emphasize the user’s payment, but also account for the user’s energy and time. “On the subway, sometimes the phone suddenly disconnected, and the basics are all lost. At this level, there will be a room for growth in the small game.” Qi Bin, a partner of Qiming Venture Partners, also expressed A similar view, Qiming Ventures voted for a project called Bubble Game last year, which is mainly used to play casual games such as music and hamsters. It can also play and chat with users and increase social attributes
In the industry’s view, the advantage of small games is that they can not accept the user’s money, and at the same time can implant some advertisements and display to earn income. However, a common view is that “small games are a wave of heat. If you pass the retention rate, you can’t do it all the time. You can’t keep rolling the game. It’s obviously unreliable for big companies, or you need to return to a high retention period and a longer cycle. Large-scale game.”
Whether big companies or small and medium-sized game companies are eagerly waiting for the issue number to be issued more quickly, but the game industry media believes that “it is still difficult to judge the frequency and time nodes of the version of the version of the version.”
In the view of the above-mentioned game practitioners, this institutional adjustment is also to simplify the problem of management interlacing, adopting verticalization and functional management. But for the game industry, in the future, whether a separate department will be established to manage the docking or continue to manage the bulls. There is still no clear attitude. He believes that “a game production takes only half a year, but the approval and results of various departments, but it may be as long as one year, and the initial investment of a game development is huge. Even now there are many small leisure classes in China. The game is to rely on some small ideas to obtain user traffic for a period. The product idea will not last long. If the game industry is coordinated by multiple departments in the future, then the game industry will only go out more and more. Some of the business is in China. Some of the business overseas will become the norm.”
After years of development, the domestic game market is already a red sea, and the overseas markets that domestic game companies give hope are also becoming increasingly crowded. Liu Yuan said, “The Southeast Asian market in the past few years was in the game industry more than a decade ago. There are no products. Chinese companies have experience, and products have passed, and then they immediately make money. Now there is gradually saturated. It has become the Red Sea, so it is difficult to grow the Southeast Asian market now.”
Unlike the domestic market, overseas markets pay more attention to intellectual property. Viking Interactive also wanted to make games based on the film and television IP, but in the end they froze the project. “According to the Chinese people’s ideas, adapting a film and television drama, or using some creative elements to do it, it is innovation, is a good product. However, overseas ideas are different. If you do this, overseas users will say that you are copying movies and is a cottage. This difference in culture and industry logic will result in very large losses.”
When the growth rate of the domestic and overseas markets is declining, these pressures are also being transmitted to industry practitioners. Li Lei expects that 20% of the players in the game industry will be eliminated in 2018~2019. People with average quality can go to small companies before, and now this opportunity does not exist. In the game industry, art and planning to 35 years old is a middle-aged crisis, the programmer’s embarrassment is 40 years old
Nowadays, not only art, planning, programmers, but the entire game industry has reached the “middle-age crisis” moment
(according to the requirements of the interviewee, Liu Wen and Li Lei are both pseudonyms)