Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Affected by the epidemic, some industries that should have been "on fire" during the Spring Festival holiday, such as movies, tourism, catering, etc., have been hit hard and even unable to recover for a long time. The game industry, which had been relatively flat during the Spring Festival, benefited from the "house economy" under the epidemic, but unexpectedly exploded.

The game industry has become the biggest beneficiary of "house economy"

In this Spring Festival holiday, which cannot go out, the Internet has become a source of spiritual food for people to chat about. Some people make up for all the TV and online dramas they missed in the past year, while others choose to pass the time by playing games. However, it is safe to say that the gaming industry has become the biggest winner in this Spring Festival traffic battle.

According to CITIC Securities estimates, the Q1 performance growth rate of major domestic game companies in 2020 will be increased by at least 10%. At the same time, there are also industry insiders calculate, head heavy game monthly flow month-on-month increment will reach 20%-40%.

According to Sensor Tower monitoring data, Tencent's "Glory of the King" App Store generated $92 million in global revenue in January, breaking a record of RMB 2 billion on New Year's Eve; another game, Peace Elite, generated $61 million in App Store revenue in January.

There are media reports that since the evening of January 25, many games on the market have appeared players can not log in problems. Even some of the more niche or long-declining script killing, werewolf killing hand games, but also in this Spring Festival ushered in the outbreak.

The founder of the screenplay game "I am a mystery" once admitted to the media that this niche game has not crashed servers for more than a year, but since the beginning of New Year's Day this year, the number of visits to the game began to surge, so that the company had to immediately expand five servers, but still not enough.

In addition to mobile games, even stand-alone and console games also took this ride. The number of online games on Steam platform has reached an all-time high, and even on some e-commerce platforms, the spot price of some games is much higher than the original price.

The business model of the game is stable, the head game life cycle is very long, and the profit is stable. Mobile games benefit from socialization, fragmentation, homesteading and direct built-in payment attributes during the Spring Festival, while e-commerce is constrained by logistics and video platforms are still in the stage of burning money. At present, games are undoubtedly the biggest winners.

It's still a carnival for head players.

Tencent, Netease, ByteDance, Lilith, Perfect World, Mihayou and Station B completely occupy the Top 10 of the best-selling list if the list data from New Year's 30th to New Year's 5th is counted. Among them, there are 4-5 resident Top10 Tencent is the winner among the winners.

There are no surprises on the free list. In addition to games, Glory of Kings and Peace Elite, almost all of the Top 10 games are casual games. Such as "Sunshine Pig Farm" this kind of so-called play game to make money products, as well as "brain hole master,""crazy guess idiom" this kind of puzzle answer game popularity, also from the side confirmed the huge appeal of the masses of users.

Take a closer look, who makes money? You will find that it is still those old games that have been launched, have a large number of users, and have formed brand effect. And the more heady the product, the more you can take away the biggest user bonus.

Data show that during the Spring Festival, Tencent's "Glory of the King" peak DAU in 120 - 150 million, another record high, and on the New Year's Eve of about 2 billion yuan, compared with the same period last year more than 700 million; another game "Peace Elite" peak DAU in 0.8- 100 million, also set a record high.

Netease game "Yin Yang Shi" peak daily flow in the New Year's Eve is also close to 100 million yuan, and returned to the App Store game bestseller list top three. Other head players, although not Tencent, Netease and so on in this wave of sudden traffic "bonus" earned more, but also got enough benefits.

Headline traffic suddenly rises

In addition to Tencent and Netease, the headline system is also rising rapidly, becoming an important force that cannot be ignored in the mobile game market. According to the ranking data of the free list on New Year's Day,"Little Beauty Fight Landlord,""Sunshine Pig Farm,""Brain Cave Master,""My Little Family,""My Kung Fu Special Bull" occupied the top five. In addition to "King Glory" and "Peace Elite," the other eight games on the free list were casual games, and all had headlines to buy.

Moreover, in the top five, there were three headline-related games, namely,"Little Beauty Fighting Landlords,""My Little Family," and "My Kung Fu Super Bull."

It is obvious that the headline system is carrying traffic in the game field, and the Spring Festival benefits "Lost Mother" free broadcast publicity effect, chatter, watermelon video and other APP in the free list for a long time, during the Spring Festival fight landlord game category, ByteDance (ByteDance) to promote "small beauty fight landlord"(Yao Ji technology research and development),"new cute fight landlord," formed and Tencent "happy fight landlord" court competition pattern.

According to the statistics of GameLook, a data analysis company of buying platform, the cost of mobile games in China reached 40 billion yuan in 2018, among which ByteDance monopolized 15 billion yuan, with a market share of 37.50%, while AppsFlyer, a data analysis company of buying platform, said that ByteDance continued to sit firmly in the first half of 2019 in China and became the world's No.1 buying platform.

In addition to the realization of traffic, ByteDance (ByteDance) will further cut into the hinterland of the mobile game market through the exclusive agency mode and will share more market cakes.

According to APP Annie released the list of monthly downloads of iOS mobile games in China in April 2019. The top ten products,"National Drift 3D,""I Flying Knife Play Thief 6" and "Cat Thousand Cup," are the exclusive agents of chatter.

It can be seen that ByteDance (ByteDance) has become one of the head players in the light mobile game market, and this Spring Festival leisure entertainment game blowout, just belongs to the former's main position, naturally benefited a lot. However, in the heavy mobile game market, the component of ByteDance (ByteDance) is still very small, so ByteDance is also preparing for self-research.

According to foreign media reports on January 20,2020, ByteDance is forming an independent game department, which has formed a team of more than 1000 people, most of whom come from first-tier game manufacturers. Two self-developed mobile games will be released this spring, targeting local and overseas players. In previous media reports, ByteDance has set up four game development teams in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai.

The advantage of ByteDance is that the traffic value is high and the promotion channel is wide. The challenge is whether to create a phenomenon-level explosive product and open the door to the heavy mobile game market.

Under the epidemic situation, the game industry is also difficult to support alone

At the end of the Spring Festival holiday, most game companies require everyone to work from home under the impact of the epidemic. This not only increases the difficulty of managing the company, but also reduces the efficiency of the team.

On the market side, the epidemic has also affected the pace of brand marketing for most game companies, with a number of marketers saying the projects at hand must be delayed because no one wants to be labeled "rich" in this particular environment.

In addition, if the long-term non-start words, some head factories in the Spring Festival earned this money, the negative impact on the entire industry is unbearable. Development does not go to work, commercial activities stop, investment stops, and many new projects can only be shelved, which is almost a fatal blow to small and medium-sized companies, especially development.

Finally, the gaming industry is not an island, it is still part of the overall macro economy. If most people don't make money, how do they make money in games?

Moreover, the capital position is not optimistic. Because of the epidemic, it is difficult for investors and entrepreneurs to ignore risks in the short term and meet and communicate online. Even if the early progress is smooth, the other party will delay doing offline due diligence. Many gaming companies are already struggling with cash reserves and cash flow, and now they will face even greater challenges.

There are also many people speculate that in addition to the extension of the holiday, the approval of the version number may also be delayed. This is even worse for game companies whose core games haven't yet launched.

conclusion

In the face of the severe epidemic, compared with other industries, the game industry is indeed a lucky one, but this does not mean that the entire game industry is about to usher in a growth inflection point (since 2015 - 2019 the growth rate of the game industry is continuously declining), there are still a lot of hidden worries. Only when the epidemic situation is improved can it bring good and hope to the whole industry.

Thankfully, though, the gaming industry is doing its part. Many game companies have taken the lead in donating money and materials to epidemic areas; some companies are preparing to add virus-related knowledge to games; others appeal in Group chats that we can do more Mini games with popular science value.

In short, the impact of the epidemic on the whole society is holistic, and the game industry is also not particularly existent. I only hope that we can overcome the epidemic as soon as possible.

Wen/Liu Kuang public account, ID: liukuang110

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