“Renaissance” game industry, in addition to cool, what else does the user bring?
Wen / Futu Research
Author / Travis
Reviewing the whole year, the entire game industry seems to have a wave of “Renaissance”. The sensational works are no longer developed by high-end engines, how powerful the pictures are, or ask a few celebrities to endorse, but It’s a simple word “difficult.”
Recalling how many afternoons it took to get through the gated “Contra”, and “Mario” who has not yet been able to hide the big green duck, “difficult” became the first group of players to experience the game. .
This year, this is the retro wave:
The console industry, following last year’s “Dark Soul”, this year’s best TGA game “Wolf” is also abused by players from all walks of life, a large “dish” word attracted countless players, and constantly try to challenge; The game is difficult)
In the PC world, “World of Warcraft” nostalgic clothes are even more unexpected than others. From the beginning of the launch, the entire server was detonated. The operator Netease had to open a new array server to calm down the anger of players lining up to log in;
The mobile game industry also began to focus on the operation, gameplay, and even the construction of the world view of the entire work. With its unique gameplay design, Ark of Tomorrow successfully merged the relatively niche tower defense games with the current popular two-dimensional element, which became popular. network.
Source: Futu Niuniu
The above-mentioned games are not sought after by players because of their simple “difficulty”. High difficulty is only their appearance, and deep gameplay is their real core.
Why the “World of Warcraft” nostalgic clothes can be called “Classic Edition”, because of its low-level design, its gameplay and playability are high, whether you are equipment party, plot party, social party, casual Party, all kinds of players can find happiness here and have a sense of belonging.
The design philosophy of this game is not to be outdated in any era.
If the explosive growth of mobile games in the past few years has lowered the barriers to entry for games, it is the education and training of game market users. So now, with the improvement of the user’s cognition level, although there is still a market for ordinary skin-changing games, low-level gameplay that is either liver or rampant has made players feel boring;
Users have risen from the original “cool” to the need for more mental core, such as common, plot generationIntimacy, social belonging among players, fetters between players and works.
The content conveyed by a work can resonate with players, and will be favored by players and sought after by the market.
With the decline of the demographic dividend and the tightening of version approval, the market will return to the quality of works. In addition to high-quality works, it will bring more cores to players.
How to interpret this trend, we need to sort out the overall industry this year.
1. The market continues to grow and the industry’s internal capacity reduction returns to quality games.
The overall game market continued to grow in 19 years. The number of players in 2019H1 reached 554 million, a year-on-year increase of 4.53%. Compared with the year-on-year growth rate of about 5% in 14-17, this year is expected to continue a higher growth rate of about 7% in 18 years .
2019H1 sales revenue reached 11.63 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.77%. It is estimated that the annual sales revenue will be more than 10%.
After the rapid development of the mobile game market, the growth rate has started to slow down significantly. In 2019H1, sales revenue was 75.310 billion yuan, an increase of 18.77% year-on-year.
The overseas market continues to grow rapidly. The overseas revenue of self-developed games in H1 2019 is 5.730 billion US dollars, an increase of 23.76% year-on-year;
The main destinations for going to sea are East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Because they are emerging markets, Chinese companies have a large number of local top 100 daily income;
While mature markets such as the United States, Japan, and Europe with good player bases and high willingness to pay, contribute a higher share of revenue, but the number of Chinese companies entering the local market in the top 100 of daily income is less, indicating that high-net-worth players in mature markets The money is not so easy to make.
Comparison of product differences in emerging and mature markets. It can be found that it is difficult to win the favor of mature players in Europe and the United States only by changing the skin and changing the value. The level of players in emerging markets is also constantly improving, with unique gameplay and higher quality works. It is the magic weapon of the sea going to break the waves in the future.
1. De-capacity of the industry, quality of works is sought after
In 2018, the approval of domestic game version numbers was suspended for 8 consecutive months, and it was not resumed until December. The backlog of many game works was considered a sap to the industry; there was only no new tour release in May 2019, except for the first three. In addition to the monthly approvals in September and September, the number of approvals exceeded 100. At other times of the year, the number of monthly approvals remained below 100, and major manufacturers had to take the fine line or be forced to go overseas.
The approval policy restricts the outflow of crude and superfluous works from the source. The industry has ushered in a wave of de-capacity and the overall quality of listed games has increased.
Affected by the “supply-side” reforms, the industry’s leading advantages have been further consolidated. In the 2019Q2 mobile game market, Tencent took the first place with 56.5% market share, NetEase’s market share reached 21%, and Sanqi Mutual Entertainment was 7%.
The status of the leading big brother still seems to be the same, but the market has welcomed new players.
The short video giants Quick Hand and Douyin have successively entered the game market. With the name of “Traffic Harvester”, Douyin has become a casual game.The largest publishing platform ever.
Therefore, the influx of fresh blood also constantly reminds the practitioners that they need to continuously improve their work quality, product development, and innovation capabilities.
If you look at it this way, will the market only accept the participation of big players? If you think so, you are wrong.
2. Deep cultivation subdivision, e-sports breakout, high-quality works harvesting users
The game works are creative, and the ultimate competitor is the “artistic accomplishments” of the producers behind it. Because of this, Chen Xinghan’s “Wind Journey”, this year’s “Elystic Disco”, “Baba is you Independent games such as “” have always been word of mouth among players.
In the game rankings this year, especially in terms of going overseas, Lilith has performed well. After years of accumulation in strategy games, the new work “Awakening of All Nations” has won a lot of fans overseas after its release, and its income ranking has never dropped. Out of the top five, and topped the list of China’s overseas mobile games in October;
FunPlus FunPlus’ “Gungun Era” and other works have long occupied the top of the income list, and the company’s 撸 撸 撸 E-sports team FPX has won this year’s championship.
Deeply cultivating subdivided fields, as always, to create high-quality works, can also rise among the male and female, and dominate the hegemony.
Source: SensorTower
3. The trend of e-sports is obvious, and the market size is constantly expanding.
When it comes to FPX, we can’t help but mention esports.
At present, the image of e-sports in the hearts of Chinese people has changed. E-sports players can also win glory for the country in the world, just like sports players. The spirit of teamwork and never giving up infects the audience in front of the screen.
Games are not just games, they can bring us more mental core.
Second and two-dimensional players lead the trend
Two-dimensional game players have high user stickiness, high willingness to pay, and high frequency of interaction. They are clearly different from other types of game players with the “three highs” feature.
The top-up here is not for the purpose of becoming stronger, but here-for “love”, the most basic emotion of human beings, and also the advanced demand of Maslow’s level of needs.
These secondary users who are keen on online interaction like to re-create the game content, which directly increases the popularity of the game and prolongs the life cycle of the work.
Apart from the game, what we are pursuing here is the emotion between the player and the game character, and the belonging between the player and the player.
Also, do n’t underestimate the “recharge for love” of these “waste houses”. “Breakdown 3” almost sent Miha to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. “FGO” can be said to send B station directly Get on the Nasdaq.
As these secondary players gradually enter the mainstream society and the new generation of players continues to join, the game market needs higher-quality works to bring more cores to players in order to meet market demand.
Source: Futu Niuniu
Three, the social value of games continues to deepen
In addition to the casual puzzle of the game itself, through the continuous exploration of practitioners for many years, its function and value have been further deepened.
Using games to help learning is very common. This year’s “2019 Game Creative Production Contest” includes excellent works such as the physical world, Dream Butterfly, and Axe Yue. It explains the physical knowledge, the source of Chinese characters, and national culture in the form of games.
It is even more unexpected that during the eleventh period, there was also a placement game “Homeland Dream” launched. Once on the line, it directly topped the AppStore free games list and was officially recommended by People’s Daily .
Why can an ordinary placement game attract such strong player attention? Although the game is small, the quality is fine.
The game integrates many elements such as construction, operation, and collection with the real development of the country. While players experience the game, they can use the perspective of the owner to build their hometown and feel the face of their hometown. With each passing day, feel the great changes of our country in these 70 years.
It is precisely to control the pulse of the times. This game, which seems to be a boring niche, shined during the National Day.
Games can bring us more kernels!
Conclusion
From the tightening of approval of edition numbers, to the market work “Renaissance”; from the breakout of the two-dimensional niche, to richer social value. The game is being accepted by more and more people, and the kernel conveyed by the game is also richer.
Thus, high-quality content will become an inevitable trend in the development of the industry, and its perfect research and development capabilities and outstanding creative capabilities are expected to become the industry leader.
The “Renaissance” revitalizes the original intention of the game. It is the precipitation of the industry after rapid development. It is the common choice of practitioners, players and regulators. Behind the quality, the game brings us a richer kernel and a more colorful world.
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