2022 is about to pass. There is only one key word for this year for the Chinese game industry: difficult.
From the data point of view, China's game industry has developed for more than 20 years. Even in 2018, which was known as the cold winter, was in a state of year-on-year growth and . However, in 2022, the industry scale of has declined year-on-year. .
Judging from the actual situation, this year large companies have been canceling projects and reducing costs and increasing efficiency, while small companies are basically on the verge of collapse.
This year has been difficult for every practitioner in the game industry.
The reason why this happened is that the entire game market has lost its vitality. The intuitive translation of the sentence
is that when we open the game best-selling list, we find products that are always in the top 10 or even the top 50. Most of them are products from 2 years ago or even 5 years ago. Even " Genshin Impact ", which can be called a new work, has been online for two years since today. "Honor of Kings" that has always dominated the list is 7 years ago.
If a product that is 7 years old is still the number one best-selling game in China, then you can say that this product is indeed great, but the other side of this greatness is the sadness of the entire market, because in 7 years, iPhone has evolved from iPhone6S to the upcoming iPhone15.
In other words, the current number one product in the mobile game industry is a product launched with the support of mobile phone technology 7 years ago. While the technology industry continues to evolve and progress, and graphics cards have evolved from 980 to 4080, the main body of the mobile game industry is still stuck at 7 years ago. What is reflected behind
is that manufacturers are becoming more and more conservative and are increasingly afraid of taking the risk of failure of key products. Players are also becoming more and more conservative and are increasingly afraid of the sunk cost of and . As for what drives such conservatism, we have no way to answer.
But what we know is that in the years when the game industry developed the fastest, the entire game industry was full of vitality. There was light in the eyes, dreams in the heart, a road underfoot, and a promising future.
2022, these disappeared.
Fortunately, let all this stay in 2022. For 2023, everything can still start again.
At the end of 2022, the issuance of a batch of game version numbers , especially imported game version numbers, gave many people hope. This is indeed a good start for 2023.
Because, compared to the issuance of version numbers, we are more concerned about who has obtained the version number and what products have obtained the version number.
What is different this time compared to the previous version number issuances this year is that large companies have once again become the protagonists, and we have seen the products of some key projects pass review, which is different. We don’t know whether the trend of
will change, but we know that the Chinese game market and the overseas game market have completely different attributes. The overseas game market seems to be divergent, while the Chinese game market is more centralized.
This is closely related to our growth environment and competitive atmosphere. There may be shining stars overseas, but in the Chinese market it is a bright moon. And when the bright moon dims, it brings darkness throughout the night.
So, this is good after all, right?
From another perspective, throughout 2022, and the European Union passed a new gaming bill, defining gaming as a strategic industry and beginning to support the development of the gaming industry. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund announced a US$37.8 billion gaming and e-sports investment plan. In addition, other major gaming countries such as the United States, Japan, and South Korea have launched corresponding talent and market development plans.
Behind this is the increasing recognition of the technology, culture and other values generated by games among governments of various countries. Games have become a good symbol of a country's comprehensive strength.
Here, China actually has a natural advantage as the world's largest game market. In the past few years, our games have indeed achieved very good results in overseas markets.
But we have always said that the reason why Chinese games can continue to grow in overseas markets is inseparable from the successful experience accumulated based on the local game market in previous years. When the development of the local game market is frustrated, the global market will inevitably be affected.
Therefore, from the perspective of the global competitive landscape and the actual data, we believe that Chinese games will also become a key support target in the future, because this is not a zero and one problem, but an either/or problem.
Let us bid farewell to the difficult 2022. We believe that the upcoming 2023 is another beginning. Because everything experienced is a seed, and only after being buried can it come to life.
