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【Game-Time special article, no reproduction without authorization!】
Game-Time report / Time flies, another year of cold and summer has come and gone, and 2023 is about to bid farewell. The gaming industry has experienced a year of relative recovery but insufficient confidence. In the past year, eye-catching events continued to emerge one after another. They represent the current status of the industry and also reveal the future development trend of the market.
As the end of the year is approaching, Game-Time has once again taken stock of the top ten news in the gaming industry in 2023 as usual. By sorting out the past, we can review the past and learn the new, and even get a glimpse of more development trends in the coming year.
- 1,075 version numbers were issued throughout the year, and the “Online Game Management Measures” (Draft for Comments) was released
After experiencing the cold winter of 2022, the game industry will usher in good news at the beginning of 2023. The issuance of version numbers has entered a normal rhythm, and the total number of version numbers issued this year has increased significantly compared with 512 in 2022.According to Game-Time statistics,A total of 1,075 version numbers were issued in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 109.96%, of which 977 domestic games were approved and 98 imported games were approved.This also means that the trend of decreasing number of version numbers issued for several consecutive years will stop in 2023.
At the same time, in addition to the fact that only imported game version numbers are issued in August and no domestic game version numbers are issued, 2023 is also the year when version numbers are issued every month throughout the year, which is another sign of the normalization of version number issuance.
On December 22, the Board of Directors officially announced the “Measures for the Administration of Online Games” (Draft for Comments), which immediately triggered significant fluctuations in the stock prices of listed game companies. After that, for several days in a row, the Board of Directors and many authoritative official media continued to announce positive information to the outside world, and the stock prices of listed game companies gradually stabilized and rebounded.
The person in charge of the Publishing House earlier told the media: “The draft for comments is based on ensuring and promoting the prosperity and healthy development of the online game industry”, also known as “The State Press and Publication Administration will carefully study the concerns and opinions raised by all parties on Articles 17, 18 and other contents of the draft, and will continue to listen to the opinions of relevant departments, enterprises, users and other parties. Further modifications and improvements based on. “
There is no doubt that the final version of the “Online Game Management Measures” will become the industry regulatory regulation that every gamer is most concerned about in 2024. How it will profoundly affect the future development of China’s gaming industry deserves continued attention.
- The popularity of AIGC has triggered many companies in the gaming industry to try
Driven by ChatGPT, major technology giants at home and abroad have come up with their own large models. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, there have been frequent dramas on the AI track. Chinese manufacturers have also benefited greatly from this wave of AI.
Compared with the “Battle of 100 Models” launched by major Internet companies and technology giants, game manufacturers rarely discuss large models, focusing mainly on how to use AI and what kind of cost reduction and efficiency improvement results AI can achieve. Generative AIGC drawing tools such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are increasingly becoming standard equipment for game companies. Sanqi Interactive Entertainment even stated that it has fully implemented a new process for AI production of 2D art, and revealed that it can save an average of 60~80% of man-hours.
Regarding the popularization of AI, there are also different voices on the player side and supervision. They believe that there are issues such as competing for jobs with painters, voice actors and screenwriters, competing with humans for jobs, and whether AIGC works are copyrighted, forming new focus of discussion.
Of course, what is different from the outside world’s perception of AI is that AI is not limited to painting, but also includes level generation, auxiliary design, AI intelligent NPC, UGC creation, data analysis, marketing efficiency improvement, etc., reaching thousands of people and thousands of people. To improve the effect of life cycle and user experience, only understanding it as a picture is too narrow. This year, a number of AI concept game startups have emerged, which have won enthusiastic support from the capital market. However, relatively speaking, there are still too few such Chinese AI game companies. It’s worth looking forward to what revolutionary progress AI can make in 2024.
- NetEase and Blizzard “divorced” at the beginning of the year, and at the end of the year they were rumored to be getting back together.
At the end of 2022, NetEase and Blizzard broke up, and the impact of subsequent events will last until the whole year of 2023. Who would have thought that World of Warcraft players would lose Warcraft again. The last time was the handover between The9 and NetEase in 2009.
In such a stable era, changes have occurred. NetEase’s efforts over the past 14 years have been noticed by players. There are different opinions on the cause of the incident, and the more credible ones point out that Blizzard set unacceptable conditions during the contract renewal process and demanded more revenue from NetEase, which caused NetEase to say no and the two parties completely broke up. Later, it was also revealed that the trigger for the breakup between the two parties was Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Caudick’s request for credit from Microsoft during the contract renewal process.
For a whole year, who will take over Blizzard’s family bucket has become a huge suspense, affecting the hearts of a large number of players. However, there is no official news yet. With Microsoft officially completing the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October this year, it indicates that the return of the Chinese server will accelerate. Interestingly, the market gap left by the departure of Blizzard games has allowed some of the old PC game products of some friends to enjoy a dramatic increase in popularity and revenue this year.
And in December, as Bobby Caldick officially resigned as CEO of Activision Blizzard, news came out that NetEase was about to reunite with Blizzard. Throughout the year, all Blizzard game players and peers have been watching the show.
- The rapid rise of krypton gold mini-games
This year is a year of unlimited glory for small games. Against the background of the existing market, small games are developing rapidly. The Game Working Committee’s “2023 China Game Industry Report” pointed out that the domestic mini program game market revenue in 2023 was 20 billion. Dataeye believes that the mini game market size in 2023 will exceed 30 billion. According to Sanqi’s algorithm, the mini game market size this year will be Reached 40 billion.
Whether it is 200, 300 or 40 billion, without exception, it means that small games are growing at a rapid pace. Head mini-games represented by “Xun Da Qian” and “Salted Fish King” have achieved monthly revenue of hundreds of millions, and their market performance is comparable to native head mobile games, regardless of revenue volume and popularity. In addition, “Xundao Daqian” and “Legend of the Mushroom Brave” have still achieved good commercial performance after going overseas, proving the universality of small games that can easily relieve stress.
The rise of mini-games also means that small and medium-sized teams have new options, or in other words, there are almost no options as the industry threshold increases. In the process of rapid growth of IAP krypton gold games, the IAA advertising monetization market has declined rapidly. The “2023 China Game Industry Report” pointed out that the advertising monetization revenue of domestic casual mobile games in 2023 dropped by 52.7% year-on-year, while the number of active Douyin mini-game products increased by 80% compared with last year, and in-app purchase revenue increased by 20 times, reflecting the business model of the mini-game market. Convert to in-app purchases and hybrid monetization.
- Nishuihan mobile game breaks MMO game record and creates new business model
MMO has been a pillar game category in the Chinese game market for more than 20 years. Since “Zhengtu” took the lead in adopting in-app purchases in China, the free + in-app purchase model has been used to this day. However, players have long complained that they are both angry and jealous, which has led to the inherent image of MMOs being branded for many years. After the fair competition game became popular, it fell behind and went from being the only category to being on par with other types of games, and even gradually marginalized its status.
Regarding the question of whether the MMO era has passed, NetEase’s “Nishuihan Mobile Game” gave its own answer. It had 40 million users in the first month and 2 billion in sales in the first month, and has since further increased to 50 million users. Regardless of popularity or income, “Nishuihan Mobile Game” basically represents the ceiling of domestic MMOs.
NetEase’s unique understanding and insight into the MMO business model has also brought players a refreshing experience. It does not force money, does not force krypton, and focuses on selling skins. It even launched a price war with 6 yuan per skin, successfully reshuffling the entire MMO market. , the popularity continues to this day. However, it is still difficult to answer whether its model can be copied. After all, design can be learned, but MAU cannot.
- The two-dimensional game bubble bursts, “Honkai Impact: Star Rail” completes the Grand Slam
With the issuance of version numbers normal, this year’s ACG circuit is full of talents, but the situation after the actual release is not satisfactory. The bubble of the ACG bubble burst in the summer period, and the industry has no profit. The time has been expanded to the entire year. The only domestic two-dimensional games that have gained a foothold are “Honkai Impact: Star Rail” in April, “Back to the Future: 1999” in May, and “Girls’ Frontline 2: Chase” at the end of the year.
This also reflects that as a result of the arms race in the two-dimensional market, most manufacturers have become losers. What is very different from the somatosensory experience of developers and players is that the Game Working Committee’s “2023 China Game Industry Report” shows that the two-dimensional market is actually growing. This year’s actual sales revenue of two-dimensional mobile games was 31.707 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.01%.
The main reason behind this is that the profitability of leading products has become stronger, and individual new products are also extremely strong, that is, the winner-takes-all Matthew effect has become increasingly significant. A typical example is “Honkai Impact: Star Rail” which achieved Grand Slam results and won the annual mobile game award from the App Store, Google Play, and TGA.
- The SLG category continues to decline, Diandian wins the overseas SLG championship
The Sensor Tower report shows that the SLG market will continue to decline in 2023, with the recent monthly revenue decline of 8%, which means that the SLG track has been declining for two consecutive years. The sluggish revenue of the entire SLG track has also deeply affected many Chinese game manufacturers on the overseas revenue list. Originally, the product with the largest overseas revenue was SLG.
The specific reasons are comprehensive. There are many user choices and Apple’s IDFA privacy protection policy, which makes it increasingly difficult to select big R models and SLG purchases become more and more expensive. In addition, domestic game manufacturers also pointed out that the ARPU of overseas SLG users has been declining in the past two years. Coupled with the decline in user consumption, as well as factors such as inflation and players cutting expenses, the entire Chinese overseas game revenue has been affected. The “2023 China Game Industry Report” shows that the actual overseas sales revenue of self-developed products in 2023 will be 16.366 billion U.S. dollars, year-on-year. Still shrinking by 5.65%, SLG has become an important factor dragging down domestic games to go overseas.
Under such difficult circumstances, Diandian’s “Frost Apocalypse” bucked the trend and became a star product. This product, developed by Diandian’s Fujian team, has hit new highs in market share and single-handedly won 10% of the overseas SLG market. , monthly turnover exceeds 400 million. The main reason is that Diandian started out by making casual games, has a unique understanding of the pan-user market, and firmly grasps the new theme of ice and snow survival, which can attract more users.
- Completely became popular, interactive live-action movies became popular, and short dramas suddenly emerged
“Finished!” released in October. I’m surrounded by beautiful women! “” became this year’s big dark horse. It became the best-selling domestic game this year in less than two weeks. It invested millions and earned tens of millions, earning a tenfold return. Discussions about love have also triggered a large number of players, self-media and official media, and the social volume is extremely large.
After becoming popular, “It’s over!” I’m surrounded by beautiful women! ” not only triggered the popularity of live-action interactive movies, but also rekindled the concept of short dramas. Nearly 6 years after “The Invisible Guardian” in 2018, interactive film and television finally released another hit.
The producer’s background as a game company with small content has also attracted attention. Triggering a series of chain reactions, such as “Oh my God!” “I’m Surrounded by Immortal Swords” project was launched at light speed, and the Chinese media Reelshort came to the stage. At the same time, in addition to attracting the attention of many game companies, the popularity of the concept of short dramas has also attracted regulatory attention, and relevant measures have been introduced to strengthen supervision.
- Large-scale layoffs
On November 27, ByteDance’s gaming business underwent massive business contraction day and night. The building that took more than five years and invested tens of billions of funds collapsed in just one day.
No one expected that this year, with high-income games such as “Crystal Core” and “Planet: Restart”, ByteDance would choose to lay off people on a large scale, and the progress was extremely fast. There were rumors one day and then the next day The layoffs have brought a huge psychological impact to the domestic game industry. Except for a few individual projects, the rest should be cut and cut, and surrounded by the aura of giant investment and high-income games, such a contrast has caused palpitations in the industry, and it is confusing where the game industry is headed.
Byte also has good reasons not to make games. Foreign media reported that ByteDance’s revenue in 2023 is US$110 billion, which is expected to surpass Tencent. It is at the juncture of turning to information platforms and e-commerce. Other businesses with poor profitability and growth are being divested by ByteDance one by one, and game research and development and distribution are among them. one.
- The party starts a war, Tencent’s “Yuanmeng Star” enters the game
On December 15, Tencent’s party game “Yuanmeng Star” was launched on all platforms, kicking off the ultimate year-end drama. Tencent, which has been keeping a low profile for a year, is full of firepower. Whether it is 1.4 billion invested in the show, half of the KOLs, or the entire network of users carnival, “Yuanmeng Star” has completely gained momentum, and even entered the best-selling list on the first day of its launch. three.
As one of the products with the largest investment this year, the achievements of “Yuanmeng Star” are not limited to the product itself, but also single-handedly stimulated domestic demand and enhanced industry confidence. The competition with “Eggman Party” also triggered a lot of discussion and brought a lot of noise to the game industry.
According to Game-Time, “Yuanmeng Star” has truly “closed the door” to the domestic party game track, and the threshold for other subsequent products to enter the track will be extremely high. Counting the most popular party game characters, maybe we will only watch “Yuanmeng Star” and “Eggman Party” in the future.
