The long-term positive trend remains unchanged but faces many difficulties
Chinese games go overseas: To pick the "fruit", you must first "plant trees"
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned from the 2022 China Game Industry Annual Conference (hereinafter referred to as the "Industry Annual Conference") held in Guangzhou recently that the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets in 2022 will be 17.346 billion US dollars. For the first time in a year, it fell by 3.7% year-on-year.
The scale of the global game market has declined year-on-year, and Chinese game companies are facing many challenges
Going overseas with games is one of the important keywords of the 2022 Game Industry Annual Conference.
At the meeting, Ao Ran, executive vice chairman and secretary general of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association, released the "2022 Report on China's Games Going Overseas".
The report shows that in 2022, the global game market will be approximately RMB 1,110.76 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 6.96%.
The global mobile game market size is about 594.519 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.26%.
In this context, Chinese game companies are facing difficulties in localization, changes in the international environment, changes in overseas laws and policies, overseas channels, and intensified overseas competition when going overseas.
These difficulties are directly reflected in the 2022 overseas revenue data.
In many overseas destinations such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the revenue growth rate of China’s overseas mobile games has also declined—Germany and the United Kingdom’s revenue growth rate has fallen by a large proportion, 15.7% and 16.7% respectively .
In terms of revenue composition, in 2022, the top three countries in terms of overseas game revenue of China’s mobile games are the United States, Japan, and South Korea, accounting for 32.31%, 17.12%, and 6.97% of revenue respectively.
Although some indicators have shown a downward trend, going overseas is still an important path for domestic game manufacturers.
Ao Ran pointed out that in 2022, although Chinese game companies will face more or less challenges when going overseas, the long-term positive trend has not changed, and Chinese games still have room for development in overseas markets.
Excavate the development potential of emerging markets and improve the "endurance" of products
So, how to dig out new increments and where are the new opportunities?
Ao Ran believes that: on the one hand, the emerging game markets in the Middle East, Africa and other regions have great development potential and are expected to become the growth point of China’s overseas games; With the development opportunity of the game going overseas.
Yin Tianming, vice president of Sanqi Mutual Entertainment Products, believes that in the new stage, game manufacturers should cultivate their "resilience" and work hard in the three aspects of "depth, innovation, and refinement" to achieve long-term development.
Among them, "deep" means to increase the operation investment rooted in localization and improve "insight"; "innovation" means that game manufacturers should improve the "endurance" of products through innovation and continuous changes in gameplay, content, and graphics; " Fine” means to improve “operating capacity” through fine-grained distribution and operation “adapted to local conditions”.
According to Yin Tianming, 37 Interactive Entertainment has been exploring overseas for more than 10 years.
In October last year, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment ranked first in the revenue list of Chinese manufacturers going overseas.
The financial report shows that in the first half of 2022, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment’s overseas revenue reached 3.033 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48.33%.
Although the financial report has increased, there is still pressure to go overseas. Yin Tianming said bluntly: "There are fewer and fewer good 'fruits' (products) in the market. To achieve long-term development, it is very important for enterprises to 'plant trees'. Although this task is difficult It is bigger and has a longer cycle, but it will have a greater boost to the sustainability of the enterprise."
In view of the scarcity of high-quality products in the market, Zhong Kunjie, deputy general manager of Xinghui Games, said that with the intensification of market competition, the importance of long-term operation of game products has increased sharply.
To achieve this, it is necessary to carry out in-depth work from four aspects: content iteration, local culture, continuous layout, and cross-promotion.
"Maintaining a high frequency, adapting to local culture, in-depth development for market segments, seeking user empathy, etc., are all important ways to lengthen the product life cycle."
"In the future, the Chinese game industry will continue to uphold the mission of spreading Chinese culture, and realize the external spread of Chinese culture in a deeper dimension and more ways." Ao Ran pointed out in his speech.
Number Talking Game 2022
The number of applicants exceeds 2700
The first impression left to the reporter by this industry annual meeting is that there are "many people" - Zhang Yijun, the first vice chairman of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association and the chairman of the game working committee of the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association, said that the annual meeting in previous years usually has 1,500 people Around 2,700 people have registered by the deadline for registration this year, and more than 2,400 people have registered through the registration channel, which is at least double that of previous years.
Sales revenue exceeded 265.8 billion
"How will the game industry fare in 2022" is the question that people who have been concerned about the game industry want to know most.
At this industry annual conference, the "2022 China Game Industry Report" officially released by Zhang Yijun gave the answer:
In 2022, the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market will be 265.884 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.33%.
The number of game users was 664 million, a year-on-year decrease of 0.33%.
Following the obvious slowdown in scale growth in 2021, there will be the first decline in the past eight years, indicating that industrial development has entered the era of the stock market.
In 2022, the actual sales revenue of self-developed games in the domestic market will be 222.377 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.07%.
The actual sales revenue of self-developed games in the overseas market was 17.346 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 3.70%-but it exceeded 10 billion US dollars for four consecutive years, and it was significantly lower than the decline in the domestic market during the same period.
Although there has been a decline in revenue, the game industry has achieved outstanding results in many fields.
Zhang Yijun said: "The level of industry health and regulation continues to improve, the protection of minors is more in-depth, and the anti-addiction work has shown results; game companies are actively expanding overseas markets and facing fierce competition from international peers; game technology continues to innovate and develop, and its spillover effects are positive. Integration; game products focus on the connotation of Chinese culture, highlighting the vitality of innovation and creativity; the 'game+' model radiates in multiple directions, cross-domain and cross-border to help industrial transformation and upgrading; the whole industry works together to fight the epidemic, focus on social benefits, and shoulder social responsibilities."
The protection of minors has been upgraded to the "4.0" stage
Since 2021, the Central Propaganda Department and other departments have implemented a series of effective measures to prevent minors from indulging in online games.
The "Survey Report on Game Literacy of Teenagers" released at the annual conference shows that the current public's cognition of games is more scientific and rational, the game literacy of teenagers is developing for the better, and they have a strong awareness and awareness of the negative impact of games.
At the meeting, Zheng Zhong, Senior Director of Tencent Growth Guardian, officially announced that "Tencent Games will be upgraded to the 4.0 stage of minor protection".
According to reports, in the "4.0" stage, while strictly controlling technology, we will go beyond "restrictionism" and explore and implement more constructive solutions through "intelligent and physical double hundred".
At the same time, according to Tencent, in July 2022, the game time of minors dropped by 92% year-on-year, accounting for only 0.7% of the total game time in the local market.
This group article/Reporter Wang Lei
Coordinator/Liu Jianghua