Mobile games are facing reshuffle after the "blowout", and the market breaks through urgently needs new product forms

Statistics show that the size of the entire China's mobile games market in 2008 was less than 200 million yuan, but by the end of 2015, it had exceeded the 50 billion yuan mark and may reach 70 billion yuan in 2016. However, under the "blowout" development trend, the development of the entire market has shown extreme "uneven heat and cold".

. With the popularity of smartphones, the development of China's mobile games market in recent years can be described as "amazing." Statistics show that the size of the entire China's mobile games market in 2008 was less than 200 million yuan, but by the end of 2015, it had exceeded the 50 billion yuan mark and may reach 70 billion yuan in 2016.

However, under the "blowout" development trend, the development of the entire market has shown extreme "uneven heat and cold": game R & D companies with abundant funds and successful products have become popular targets in the market, and small and medium-sized R & D companies are facing increasingly cruel living environment and development is difficult.

With the rising costs of copyright IP regulation, marketing and other costs and the homogenization of products, as well as the continuous slowdown in the growth rate of users and revenue in the entire market, some experts believe that in the face of booming giant companies, small and medium-sized game companies are in urgent need of new product forms to seek market breakthroughs.

Market size and payment rate continue to grow.

In 2015, the mobile game market was affected by the capital winter and market bubble, and a large number of small and medium-sized game developers closed down. As far as the current market is concerned, although the overall growth rate has slowed down, it continues to "grow". It is still the main theme of the mobile game market, and it is only a matter of time before China becomes the world's largest mobile games market.

The 38th "Statistical Report on China's Internet Development Status" released by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in August this year shows that as of June 2016, the number of mobile online game users in my country was 302 million. Compared with before 2014, the growth rate of user scale has slowed down, but it still increased by 23.11 million compared with the end of last year.

In particular, the portability and real-time nature of mobile phones can meet users 'needs to play games anytime and anywhere, make them more sticky and integrate into life. Driven by these factors, the number of users of mobile games has grown rapidly and has also demonstrated an increasingly strong ability to "attract money."

The "China Mobile Games Industry 2016 (Mid-Year) Report" recently released by Penguin Zhiku United App Big Data shows that the user payment rate reached 68.4% in the first half of 2016, a full increase of 21.8 percentage points from 2015. Among mobile game paying users, the proportion of paying users with an average monthly consumption of more than 50 yuan has increased significantly from 2014 to 2015; the proportion of paying users with an average monthly consumption of more than 100 yuan has doubled.

The reasons are not only the growth in average user income, increased stickiness, and increased payment awareness, but also the current reliance on increasingly convenient and diverse mobile payment methods and other factors.

A survey of mobile Internet users showed that more than half of the respondents often play mobile games, and 35.3% spend an average of more than 2 hours a day on mobile games, while only 16.4% never play mobile games. The biggest reason for paying is to "improve equipment."

It is not difficult to see from all kinds of data that the mobile game market is huge and profitable. Especially with the significant increase in smartphone users, users 'participation in mobile games has become more frequent and stable, and major overseas R & D, publishers and channels The overall industrial chain of the platform has continued to develop. In terms of scale and payment rate, my country's mobile game market has maintained a continuous growth trend in recent years. For game monetization, it has gradually entered a golden age of development.

The

"China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee shows that in the first half of 2016, mobile games accounted for nearly half of the entire China game market, while Tencent and Netease accounted for 70% of the total mobile game revenue and continue to expand their lead.

This means that in the cold winter of capital where cash flow is extremely precious, the remaining nearly 24000 domestic game companies will have to fight tenaciously in the remaining 30% of the market.

Netease CEO Ding Lei once said that "Fantasy Westward Journey" and "Westward Journey" have made a huge contribution to the growth of the company's mobile game revenue. These two money-making trees, which generate nearly 800 million yuan of revenue per month, leave many end tourists in the dust.

Tencent, on the other hand, makes full use of its two social platforms and application treasure channels with wide coverage, QQ and WeChat, to radiate its games to a large number of user groups, making up for the lack of social and interactive nature of mobile games in the past. shortcomings, enhance user game stickiness and extend the life cycle of games.

According to statistics, in the first half of the year, Tencent had a total of 8 products that ranked among the top 10 monthly revenue for iOS. In terms of Android platform, Tencent's "King's Glory" won the top spot in Android platform revenue in the first half of the year.

Under the strong market offensive of Tencent and Netease, many small and medium-sized Mini games companies, not to mention small and medium-sized enterprises, even ordinary big game companies are struggling to survive.

Data shows that in the first half of this year, nearly 40% of companies experienced a year-on-year decline in revenue. In terms of revenue, Chinese Media is the company with the highest game revenue in the first half of the year except for the two giants due to its acquisition of Smart Star, but it only accounts for 19.3% and 7% of Netease and Tencent's game revenue. Previously, Perfect World and Giant Network, both of which were among the top four online games, had revenue only 5.4% and 3.1% of Tencent's game revenue.

Although Netease Games is considered to be Tencent Games 'most powerful competitor, the gap between the two is also huge. In the first half of this year, Tencent's total revenue was 17.1 billion yuan. Although the gap between Netease games has narrowed significantly compared with the same period last year, it only has 36.4% of Tencent games.

Market breakthrough is in urgent need of new product forms Under

the unprecedented fierce market competition, domestic game companies began a fierce reshuffle last year. It continued in the first half of this year, but the competition for resources by mobile game giants has never stopped.

In the first half of this year, Tencent acquired Supercell, the Finnish mobile game company, the developer of Clash Royale, for US$8.6 billion. China consortium including Giant Network and Yunfeng Fund announced the acquisition of Israeli casual social mobile games company Playtika for US$4.4 billion.

Relevant data shows that the total number of mergers and acquisitions in the game industry from January to July this year reached US$25 billion, which has also become a major indicator of further integration in the game market.

According to International Investment Banking Services, the growth rate of software revenue in the game market will generally slow down from 2016 to 2020. However, as the growth rates of different game fields change, more corporate mergers and acquisitions are expected to occur before the end of the year.

Under this situation, other major domestic mobile game companies and publishers have responded to this crisis-"joint releases". For example, Cheetah Mobile and Youku Tudou jointly released "Deadly Snipe" and other cases.

However, all this has nothing to do with the small and medium-sized mobile game entrepreneurial teams that have no resources or money. After Netease and Tencent have occupied more than half of the market share, once the traditional end-game manufacturers + outstanding CP publishers who have emerged in the mobile game era "gather together to warm up", the entire mobile game market channel will move from a "hundred flowers bloom" to an "oligopoly" pattern, and the life of small and medium-sized mobile game entrepreneurial teams will surely be even more difficult.

Xue Yongfeng, a senior analyst at Analysys International, believes that with the rising costs of copyright IP regulation, marketing and other costs and the homogenization of products, as well as the continued slowdown in the growth rate of users and revenue in the entire market, more than half of the small and medium-sized mobile game entrepreneurial teams will die. Xing Shanhu, CEO of Ledong Excellence, even said that within two years, the final survival rate of the existing more than 10,000 game companies is only 0.04%.

In this regard, some experts believe that for small and medium-sized mobile game developers, the routines of "changing the IP case" and "changing the skin without changing the gameplay" are no longer competitive. The mobile game category will trend towards a new development of heavy stand-alone games, popularization of independent games, and specialization of market segments. At present, the most realistic way out is to devote ourselves to independent game development and seek a breakthrough in the increasingly fierce market competition with a new product form.

Editor: yvette