R & D Companies Move Towards Platform Operation Channel And Usher In Reform

In the past year, the global economy has been plagued by the new crown pneumonia epidemic. Due to the controllable overall situation and huge demand of the Chinese market, the game industry has ushered in a period of rapid reserve and development.

However, it is generally believed that in the context of the rapid development of mobile game market, even in the post epidemic era, the development potential of the game industry is still great.

Last year, domestic game companies have increased investment and research, channel change and other aspects of seeking new knowledge, and achieved certain results, which is also closely related to the changes in lifestyle in the new communication era. It is only in the cloud games that are coming from the 5g era that the deployment rhythm between manufacturers is different.

Now, for the game industry in the post epidemic era, the greater significance lies in the change of players' consumption habits.

Ingrid lestiyo, senior vice president and general manager of unity (NYSE: U) operation solutions, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter recently: "in 2020, we will see for the first time that the growth rate of IAP (next day's purchase) far exceeds advertising revenue. Advertising revenue is also growing, up 8% year-on-year last year, but the strong growth of IAP tells us that the payment habits of game players have changed. "

She added that this is a sign for developers: they need to create a more "smart" in-game economy, where good enough content will make players willing to pay in the game, while developers themselves can make more money.

"In the European market, this trend is already obvious, followed by the US market. In the Asia Pacific region, advertising revenue is still dominant, but this model is likely to change soon. " Ingrid.

Game world after epidemic

In 2020, a significant feature of the game industry is to get good results in going out to sea. This is mainly due to the frequent efforts of game developers during this period, as well as the promotion of the epidemic situation, game players are better educated and trained.

According to sensor According to tower statistics, in the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 21 Chinese mobile games were selected as the top 100 bestsellers in the United States, with revenue of $780 million, accounting for 20% of the total market share, second only to 30.6% of the domestic manufacturers in the United States. In the Japanese market, China's mobile game revenue increased 81% year-on-year in 2020, accounting for 27% of Japan's mobile game market share in the fourth quarter. Works such as "original God" and "operation in the wilderness" have long been among the best sellers Ten.

In response, Xu Yuan, executive director and chief operating officer of IgG (0799. HK), said in an interview with the 21st century economic report that "in the past year, due to the epidemic situation, Chinese game manufacturers have significantly better R & D efficiency than overseas large factories. Therefore, we have set up new R & D teams in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu last year, and will continue to expand enrollment in Shanghai and Chengdu this year. At the same time, we are also injecting power into our long-term development by investing in external high-quality R & D team platform companies. "

This is also reflected in the performance level. According to the recent financial report released by IgG, the company achieved a net profit of HK $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2020, a year-on-year increase of 64%, a record high since its listing.

Xu Yuan explained that the epidemic has indeed brought some development opportunities to the game industry, but the more important reason for the growth of the company's performance is that its R & D and operation have reached a new level.

"We see that the R & D capability of Chinese manufacturers has completed the overtaking of overseas large factories. MIHA tour ranked first in the second half of the year. Lilith surpassed supercell, a big European and American factory, so we also saw opportunities in R & D. Therefore, we continue to increase the R & D layout in China to achieve all-round upgrading. " He continued.

Ingrid told the 21st century economic reporter that the overall trend is that last year's epidemic has made games more integrated into people's lives, and the living room has become a new game hall. More players are consuming more games and participating in games with friends and relatives across platforms.

"For example, my own family, often because of the separation, but often through the game together to maintain the relationship between each other." She continued.

Because of this, people prefer multiplayer online games to stand-alone games. The latter's average large-scale content update can increase the peak value of online players by more than 11%.

"We see that the growth rate of mobile games is the fastest among all game platforms, and it has been the same for several years in a row. In 2020, PC and console games will also grow significantly, with a 38% increase in the number of players, which has not been seen in previous years. Last year, the most popular games were those that brought together players from all platforms, such as protogod and among us. " Ingrid further said.

The 2021 game market weathervane report recently released by unity also shows that people find that they have more time to enjoy in-depth game experience. As a result, the moderate hard core and hard core game market has grown significantly. However, if the time is extended to the whole year, players' behavior will gradually fall back, approaching the trend of 2019. At the same time, leisure applications have declined significantly, and never really recovered to the growth trend shown in 2019.

Xu Yuan told reporters that although the impact of the current epidemic is gradually alleviating, mobile games are still a major trend. From the perspective of IgG, in addition to SLG (strategy games) which has always been good at, it is also optimistic about women to the game track. "This year, we will launch more than 20 different categories of games, including SLG games, as well as cross category products for women and action. The themes of SLG games will be more diversified. For women, in addition to the fantasy book story, which is mainly promoted this year, they also plan to launch games covering comics, reading, changing clothes and gongdou

The substantial improvement of IgG's performance last year is also inseparable from the continuous contribution of its core game, era of kingdoms. The company's announcement shows that this is "breaking the previous two years of continuous downward flow of the predicament.".

Xu Yuan pointed out to reporters that the game can achieve "old trees open new shoots", thanks to the breakthrough in playing method and operation. "In addition, there is also an IP linkage with star arrow of Saint warrior. This IP is very appealing to male players aged 30-40 years in China and Japan, and its fan base is highly consistent with our game users. It is believed that the linkage between Saint fighter IP and Kingdom era can help us to further break through the user and flow scale in East Asia and Mainland China market. "

"In summary, I think the game development and operation strategy in 2021, if developers focus on cross platform and multi player online games, and have a complete and reasonable in-game economic model, that is to continue to create excellent content to attract players to pay in-game. If the game is free, plus the combination of traffic and advertising revenue, this will make it possible for developers to pay for the game The strategy should win in 2021. " Ingrid told reporters.

New roles and channels

In addition to the in-depth optimization of game products themselves, game developers are also seeking greater independent development space at the operational level.

Xu Yuan stressed to the 21st century economic reporter that it was very important for IgG to complete the transformation from a buying company to a platform company last year.

"We found a more positive and effective way." He further pointed out that last year, IgG has built many of its apps into a massive user platform with more than 100 million users. Relying on the brand promotion brought by the platform, more high-quality users will be brought to Kingdom era. Since the beginning of this year, the game has performed well in the U.S. market.

"This year, we will continue to maintain this momentum, make more mobile apps, and at the same time expand the number of users at this speed, so as to generate stronger and broader platform synergy effect." Xu Yuan continued.

Zhongtai international securities also pointed out that IgG formed a platform synergy effect with the company's game business by expanding its tool mobile applications, including cleaning and accelerating app, privacy app, battery app, etc.

The agency pointed out that the tool mobile applications have strong exclusivity, which helps to keep users in the company system, enhance the effect of brand promotion and reduce the cost of user acquisition. Roughly calculated, the cost of acquiring customers of IgG will drop by 48% year on year in 2020.

It should be said that this is a microcosm of game developers exploring new directions in today's more active way of interconnection. At the same time, it can be seen that the status of traditional game channels may also change.

Open source securities points out that as the release of advertising stock on fast hand, BiliBili Bili, taptap, Zhihu and other traffic platforms accelerates, the purchase cost may slow down, and more and more game products can not choose the mobile app store channel for the first time on the Android platform, which may lead to a decrease in the proportion of the running water of the Android channel joint operation.

For example, the agency cited the drop in the proportion of "Yuan Shen" games in the Xiaomi channel from the usual 50% to 30%, which is expected to promote the net interest rate of game publishers.

Hua'an securities also pointed out that since 2020, the game industry has seen a series of events, such as the original God, the awakening of all nations, the lantern and the dungeon, which have not landed in the Android App store, which verifies the arrival of the era of "content is king" under the trend of channel decentralization, and the bargaining power of game developers with strong product strength will continue to improve.

Only in the 5g era of game research and development, may not soon appear too many new forms of game products.

Xu Yuan told reporters that IgG has positive attention to VR, AR and other games, but has not seen a good business model for the time being, so there is no relevant product for the time being. Cloud games are also actively concerned, but the current research and development of new products are mainly mobile games.

Ingrid also pointed out to reporters that fast and non delay network transmission not only makes it possible to play games in the cloud, but also creates a richer and more social multiplayer game experience with the help of the cloud.

According to reports, unity, as a real-time 3D content creation and operation platform, its cross platform technology allows developers to "develop at one time and publish on multiple platforms", which includes not only all mainstream hardware platforms, but also cloud platforms. In the future, unity developers will also be able to publish games to cloud game platforms through the unity editor.

"However, 5g deployment may take several years, and developers need to consider when the best time to launch cloud games is to balance various costs and seize the opportunity to reach more players through cloud games." She said.

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