Text / Zhao Jiahe
Editor / Dafeng
" Shi Yuzhu Great Idle Man" finally couldn't be idle anymore.
On July 9, Shi Yuzhu appeared at the strategic cooperation conference between " journey " and Golden Sauce Wine in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. It was also the first appearance of this legendary boss in the past three years.
At the meeting, he made an astonishing statement: the Israeli game company Playtika that he acquired at a cost of US$4.6 billion was just a "business", so the sale of Playtika would clear the Giant Group's debt within a year; and "Journey" and Golden Sauce Wine is done as a "career", so he personally supervised the production of the mobile game "Original Journey", and also added metaverse elements such as "Cloud Brewing" to the series of games.
This seems a bit confusing and fragmented. Giant Network As a veteran game company, Yuanverse's "cloud brewing" attempt can be regarded as closely following the trend, but no matter how trendy it is, it is still eating "Zhengtu", which has been fried for more than ten years.
In fact, this is also a microcosm of the development of Giant Network in recent years.
According to financial report data, 70% of Giant’s online game segment revenue in 2019 came from the top five game products, and 4 of them were “Journey” and its derivatives. From the battle of "Zhengtu" in 2006, which changed the structure of the domestic game market to the present, to the gradual withdrawal from the mainstream competition stage as the times, Giant Network has made efforts, but the products are still in short supply. The move of selling Playtika is a further step for previous capital acquisitions. The failure of the plan completely sealed the deal.
In that era when the game market was not yet civilized, it was the giants who pioneered the world; but as the times changed, the giants had nowhere to go.
Shi Yuzhu gave up "youth"
Shi Yuzhu took a giant step this time, and it was obvious that he put a lot of effort into it.
First of all, he is in charge of products again after many years. The mobile game "Original Journey" personally supervised by Shi Yuzhu has launched iOS pre-orders and will be launched on the market in the second half of the year.
then joined forces with Golden Sauce Wine, another "business" of Giant Group, to establish a strategic partnership and will carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of digital marketing of consumer goods. Shi Yuzhu said at the press conference: "This is the first time that Zhengtu and Golden Sauce Wine have worked together and held this event together. It cannot be very rigid and must be connected between the two products."
And the method he chose was "cloud brewing".
It is understood that the specific form is that the Zhengtu IP series games will simultaneously launch the "Cloud Brewing" customized gameplay. Users can experience sauce wine brewing in real time in the game and obtain the "golden sauce wine" game props; at the same time, players in the game You will have the opportunity to obtain co-branded wine and realize the link between the virtual experience of online "cloud brewing" and the physical appreciation of liquor offline.
golden sauce wine
Judging from the attitude shown by Yuzhu in history towards metaverse , this form is not difficult to guess. But thinking more deeply, this is more like a marketing method to jointly sell wine, but it is difficult to see how much novelty and sincerity there is.
On the one hand, the cooperation between the two parties cannot be said to be "tears of the times", at least it can be called a "generation gap product". As an online game launched in 2006, "Zhengtu" could be said to be a phenomenal hit game at the time. However, with the advent of the mobile game era, it soon disappeared from the mainstream market. Even if transplanted versions have been launched successively, such as "Zhengtu Pocket Edition" and this time "Original Journey", it still cannot escape the earliest basic framework. Now we can only place our hopes on those middle-aged people with feelings like "Legend".
As one of Shi Yuzhu's two hobbies of "playing games and drinking sauce wine", Golden Sauce Wine has high hopes from the outside world. However, as the sauce wine market has cooled down and OEM OEM rumors have emerged frequently, it seems that it will be difficult for this product line to reproduce the glory of melatonin .At the same time, choosing a product with Tengger as the "Chief Emotional Officer" to co-brand with a game has been called "deviating from the main channel of the gamer market" by industry insiders.
Picture source network
On the other hand, key concepts such as "cloud brewing" and "online virtual experience, offline physical connection" are basically just another way of saying selling wine. Perhaps because of the drinking culture of the older generation, established game companies now like to "wine" in their games. For example, the gaming company Zhongbao , whose chairman just stepped down two months ago, made its fortune in the early years by relying on "red games" such as " Anti-Japanese War Heroes " and became the first domestic online game to be listed on the GEM in 2010. company.
On January 3, 2022, the then chairman Li Ruijie revealed its "Yuanverse" game "Brew Master" on Weibo. Two days later, Zhongqingbao's stock price directly hit the limit. On the 11th, it directly received a letter of concern requesting Zhongqingbao explained "whether there have been repeated deliberate attempts to exploit hot topics in the Metaverse and gain market attention."
"Wine Master"
"Wine Master" and what Shi Yuzhu said this time are exactly the same. Players can run the winery according to their own wishes in the game, and can also pick up wine online; and "Wine Master" cooperates with the winery The company happens to be Jinsha Ancient Wine, which is 100% owned by Li Ruijie and his wife.
There are various signs that the path Shi Yuzhu led the giants on can be said to have nothing to do with "new". But having said that, the "Zhengtu" IP is still the absolute pillar for Giant Network to maintain profitability in recent years. This joint brand still has the possibility of tapping the vertical market; but in any case, this road is gradually drifting away from the mainstream young market.
The giant has grown old
"I started Zhengtu in 2005 because Chen Tianqiao blocked my game account in the first half of 2005. I had no time to play, so I invested 20 million in development. ” This story has been told by Shi Yuzhu countless times, including in this press conference.
This much-talked-about deed adds a few more colors to Shi Yuzhu's already legendary resume: Such a successful game turned out to be "played" in this way.
"Zhengtu" was officially launched on April 21, 2006, which instantly detonated the domestic online game market at that time and promoted Giant Network to the altar in one fell swoop. According to the memories of many players, "all Internet cafes and even network administrators were playing this game at that time", and its popularity was even greater than that of the previous "Legend". "
source network
is popular, but it has also single-handedly changed the pattern of the domestic game market to this day. Some players even now use the word "trauma" to describe the impact of this game.
Before "Journey" Domestic games, including the early "Legend", generally adopt the "P to P" (Pay to Play) model, including the now popular buyout system and the gradually phased out point card system. But "Zhengtu". However, it was the first time that the game was free and the items were paid for, bringing "Pay to Win" into the chaotic game market.
The subsequent impact was out of control. It is understood that every "Zhengtu" game back then. A generation of players who have been ranked "No. 1 in the world" have spent more than one million yuan in the game, and some of them have spent more than 10 million yuan. They have provided more than 20 billion yuan in revenue to Giant Network for more than ten years. Collect.
Subsequent games have also followed suit, and even Chen Tianqiao's "Legend" has been forced to switch to the same model. Looking at the current situation, the free game props payment model still occupies the mainstream of the market, Giant and "Journey" said. It is not an exaggeration to say that it has created an era.
"Zhengtu" also led to the unhealthy trend of asking "big brothers" to play games with them. In 2007, Shi Yuzhu planned to expand the marketing staff of "Zhengtu" to 20,000 people, known as "Zhengtu". Raise 100 people to play with one person."
However, as the era of PC games gradually moves closer to the era of mobile games, the product life of "Zhengtu" has reached its limit, and the company's products have begun to decline. In 2018, Giant Network launched the mobile game version of "Zhengtu", which hit a revenue peak of 3.78 billion yuan that year and became its final swan song.
In the following years, although "Zhengtu" was still the main source of income for Giant Network, its revenue has been declining year by year. According to financial report data, Giant Network achieved operating income of 2.124 billion yuan in 2021, a decrease of 4.20% from the same period last year, and a net profit of 1.055 billion yuan, equivalent to the level of 2018; the game business accounted for 99.4% of the overall revenue, mainly The source is still the two games "Zhengtu" series and " ball battle ".
Giant Network has not failed to make efforts in catering to the young market. The annual report shows that Giant Network employees have tended to become younger. At the same time, they have also launched new games such as "Dragon and World's End" and "Super Sus", but they are still in the testing stage. In June of this year, Giant Network co-CEO Wu Meng resigned. He once wrote a "letter of ten thousand words" internally, pointing out three major hidden dangers of Giant Network: 1. After Chairman Shi Yuzhu retired, no one in the company knew how to make products; 2. He was accustomed to using resources to solve problems and lacked "product awareness" "; 3. "Not focused", want to try everything.
Unfortunately, he chose to leave after a year, perhaps because his ambition was unfulfilled. This is why the outside world generally speculates that Shi Yuzhu has not appeared on the stage for a long time. It's just that the giant is really getting old. Even if Shi Yuzhu personally takes action, he still has to pick up the old rice of "Zhengtu".
"Giants" can't keep up with the new era.
In the list released by Sensor Tower in June this year, Tencent , NetEase and other 38 Chinese manufacturers were shortlisted for the top 100 global mobile game publisher revenue list, and Giant Network was not on the list.
It is also difficult to see giants in the lists of other major game companies.
Like Giant Network, there are also established game companies such as Shanda and Zhongqingbao. can be found that in the barbaric era when the domestic game market was still in its ascendant, these companies could all be called "open heavens", but now they are more or less struggling under the torrent of the new era.
For example, the CEO of Zhongqingbao mentioned above, Li Ruijie, was interviewed when the game "Qing Empire" was launched in 2003. He confidently stated that he "only makes money and does not lose money" from the game. Relying on popular online games such as "The Legend of Anti-Japanese Heroes", Zhongqingbao became the first game company to be listed on the GEM in 2010, pioneering the local listing of online game companies.
"The Legend of the Anti-Japanese Heroes"
But now, the various shortcomings that have emerged are almost the same as those of the giants: a single source of revenue, and financial report data has declined year after year. It is understood that from 2010 to 2014, Zhongqingbao's revenue increased year by year, but from 2015 to 2021, it declined overall. In 2019, it picked up slightly but was never as good as in 2014. Zhongqingbao's gross profit margin also dropped from 85.52% in 2010 to 31.24% in 2020. By the beginning of 2022, Zhongqingbao's share price had fallen by 45%, and it had suffered net losses for two consecutive years.
Zhongqingbao wanted to seize industry opportunities through large-scale mergers and acquisitions, but there was no improvement; Giant's two acquisitions of Playtika and Taomi.com also failed.
Now, both brothers want to "sell wine on the cloud" in the game. As for Chen Tianqiao, who made it to the Forbes billionaire list through legendary agency, and his Shanda, they were privatized more than 10 years ago and shifted most of their focus away from games.
What they have in common is that they rely on a game to quickly make money and rest on their laurels. In that period of barbaric growth, it was a common choice for major manufacturers to use explosive products to open up the market and accumulate quickly. This is understandable. However, if you always rely on making money and relying on agents, it will be difficult to ride the ship of the new era if you are sitting on nothing.
We can look back at Tencent and NetEase. At that time, their size may have been just a foil behind those big brothers, but due to continuous self-research and innovation and adapting to the market, they have been laughing until now. For example, the success of " eternal " some time ago is the best evidence.
is indeed the first batch of "enlightened" giants to open up the domestic game market, but it also leads it to an immature and healthy path simply and crudely. Their efforts to please the market are fruitless, and the result of them wandering further and further away from the mainstream market is the best microcosm of market changes.
