Smartphone games from China are sweeping the gaming industry in countries such as Japan. Popular works such as combat games that generate more than 200 million downloads around the world continue to emerge. Japanese media reported that in Japan, where the charging model is popular, Chinese mobile games have become a threat to Japanese domestic companies
Images from Nikkei Chinese.
According to “Nihon Keizai Shimbun” recently reported that in China, as the regulation of online games has been strengthened, large companies have expanded their development and marketing systems to open up overseas markets. As competition becomes more intense, the strategy of Japanese companies will be affected
The game “Wild Field Action” developed by NetEase China has reached more than 200 million downloads worldwide. According to US research firm App Annie, Netease ranked second in the world’s mobile game publishing company in 2018. The driving force behind this is the game
Images from Nikkei Chinese.
The report pointed out that Netease is also expanding its fans in Japan when the mobile phone in China is not reduced. According to GzBrain, publisher of the Japanese game information magazine “Famitsu”, the Japanese business income of “Wild Action” reached 40.4 billion yen (about 2.46 billion yuan) in 2018. The Japanese domestic mobile game market, which has an advantage in Japanese companies, ranks fourth
The report said that the strong momentum of Chinese mobile games is also reflected in advertising. According to data from the research company Video Research Interactive, in the April-September 2018 campaigns for smartphones, Wilderness Action beat Japanese companies and ranked first
In addition to Wilderness Action, the Blue Lines, which was developed by China’s online video service provider bilibili, is also very popular. This is a game of anthropomorphizing a ship into a female character. It was launched in Japan in 2017, and by June 2018, the number of users in Japan exceeded 6 million. It is characterized by the use of Japanese voice actors from the Chinese version, and was originally developed for Chinese users who like Japanese games
According to data from GzBrain, the world game content market in 2017 increased by about 20% from the previous year, reaching 1,089.6 billion yen (about 663.45 billion yuan). The Japanese market is 1,568.6 billion yen (about 95.5 billion yuan), and mobile games account for nearly 70% of them. Another survey showed that the per capita APP consumption of Japanese nationals ranked first in the world. It can be seen that Japan is a “hand travel big country”
The report pointed out that Japanese companies have always achieved higher returns in the domestic market, but the current tendency to touch the ceiling is also strengthening. There have been many cases in which domestic large-scale games have been published for more than five years since the initial release. The new hot works are in the “difficult to produce”, and the Japanese mobile games at the top of the rankings are becoming “aging”
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In addition, the increase in development fees and promotion fees is also plaguing Japanese companies. It is said that the cost of tens of millions of yen a few years ago is not a small number due to the escalation of graphics and the long-term development cycle, and the recent rise to hundreds of millions to 1 billion yen. The dystocia of popular works has made it difficult to recycle investment, which has become a factor that has caused the deterioration of the income of Japanese companies
On the other hand, Chinese companies have established a strong development system with rich financial strength. At the same time, Chinese companies are still strengthening marketing, such as collecting opinions and ideas for many general users for game improvement. Hechuan Wenxiong, a media content research expert familiar with the game industry, said that “the success of Chinese games is very high, and it is clear how to seize users.”
In the world game market, the situation in which Chinese companies compete for dominance has been strengthened. In the context of the aging of independent software, Japanese companies face confrontation or expand cooperation with Chinese companies? The corresponding strategy of Japanese companies may be tested