The pan-entertainment industry is gradually "securitizing" capital, targeting IP, secondary yuan, and movie and game linkage

Although the A-share market has been deeply "wary" of theme speculation, the securitization trend in film, television, games, animation and other industries is still continuing. The corresponding "pan-entertainment industry" labels such as IP, VR, secondary element, and movie and game linkage are attracting the attention of capital.

Original title: IP, secondary yuan, and video-game linkage capital targeting pan-entertainment labels

Although the A-share market has been deeply "wary" of theme hype, the securitization trend in film, television, games, animation and other industries is still continuing. The corresponding "pan-entertainment industry" labels such as IP, VR, secondary element, and movie and game linkage are attracting the attention of capital.

Not long ago, at the 2016 Pan-Entertainment Industry (Games) Summit Forum co-organized by Digital Entertainment DreamWorks and Soochow Securities, many companies shared their development concepts: for example, Langang Pictures, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed company Langang Interactive, proposed that it will open up film and television, games, and animation, with its products clearly positioned in the new generation market born in the 1990s and 1995; for example, Rice Film, which has a Series C valuation of 4 billion yuan, believes that the opportunity for local animated films has arrived. However, some insiders pointed out that although the prospects of pan-entertainment are wonderful, capital also needs to remain rational. By striving to seek natural integration between industries and finding the best model for corporate development, we may better grasp the pulse of the market and turn bubbles into benefits.

According to the "2015-2016 White Paper on the Development of China's Pan-Entertainment Industry", the core idea of the pan-entertainment industry lies in the exploration and reshaping of IP value, while the essence of "movie-game linkage" is still to find cooperation in the pan-entertainment industry in the two major fields of movies and games. Space, implement IP linkage development, and open up an interactive entertainment ecosystem. According to reports, the well-known representative works of movie-game linkage on the market currently include: the mobile game of the TV series "Flower Thousand Bones" jointly released by Tianxiang Interactive and iQiyi, the mobile game of the same name launched by Digital Sky,"Journey to the West: Monkey King Three Beats the Bone Bones" released by Sanqi Mutual Entertainment on both web games and mobile games, and the "Three-Body" movie game development jointly developed by Youzu Network and Youzu Pictures.

Driven by the dual industry and the market, many listed companies have also listed "movie and game linkage" as a strategic development direction. In addition to Youzu Network, Huayi Brothers, Sanqi Mutual Entertainment, Aofei Entertainment, Tianshen Entertainment, etc. have also taken advantage of this to lay out the pan-entertainment industry.

In addition to A-share listed companies competing to deploy, there are also some new companies planning to enter this field. For example, Langang Pictures, which participated in this Pan-Entertainment Industry (Games) Summit Forum, was established in March this year and is a subsidiary of Langang Interactive. In the view of Ren Zhaonian, CEO of Langang Pictures, in the past, cooperation methods based on purely commercial IP authorization and purchase were shallow cooperation. Nowadays, a series of business models such as movie and game linkage and roaming linkage have gradually become hot spots in the industry. Therefore, as a film and television company with game genes, Langang Pictures will rely on its innate game resources and combine current animation hotspots to try to implement a three-in-one development strategy of film, television, games, and animation. Ren Zhaonian said that Langang Pictures 'main audience group is young people. The company will use its own game IP as the basis, dig deep into the needs of people born in the 1990s and even in the 2000s, focus on creating a new generation of film and television, animation projects, and export cultural content to secondary groups.

On the other hand, today, when everyone is talking about IP, film and television companies sometimes inevitably become "wage earners" for popular IP projects. From production (acquisition) to production,"promoting" a certain IP often requires investing a lot of energy and resources. After the IP becomes popular and monetized, how to retain popular IP has become a new test. In this regard, Zhang Qingyou, chairman of Mili Pictures, who participated in this forum, uniquely believes that cartoons will truly retain IP.

From the beginning of its establishment, Mili Films has determined that it will focus on the production of animated films. If the dark horse "Return of the Great Sage" in 2015 gave him a glimpse of the light, then the success of this summer's Light Media's "Big Fish Begonia" made Zhang Qing more determined the value of animated films. Regarding the choice between animated films and live-action films, Zhang Qing pointed out: "The IP (content copyright) behind live-action films does not belong to the film company, because it is the director and stars who promote it. But for animated films, each movie is a movie. It belongs to the company. The IP will always remain in the company's accounts and create value for the company."

Zhang Qing further explained that in comparison with live-action films, the production cost of animated films dominates. For example, the cost of "Return of the Great Sage" is about 40 million yuan, while the cost of "Big Fish Begonia" is about 60 million yuan, which is equivalent to the salary of an A-list star. Comparison shows that in today's situation where production costs are getting higher and higher and there are fewer and fewer truly small-cost films, animations have certain cost advantages. In addition, Zhang Qing believes that the backend of animations is more extensible, that is, animation IP can develop more derivative industries, especially in the game field.

In fact, since the second half of last year, many film and television companies have turned their attention to the animation industry. For example, Enlight Media has invested in several animation companies, and animation has been identified as one of the key development directions of Enlight Pictures in the future. Huayi Brothers is also actively deploying this field. This year, it established a wholly-owned animation company and launched "Rock Tibetan Mastiff" at the opening of the summer season. In addition, Aofei Entertainment, Great Wall Animation, Caesar Shares, etc. have also deployed this field.

Editor: vian