As domestic game manufacturers have gone abroad on a large scale in recent years, various actions such as globalization/regional new product layout from China, overseas investment and mergers and acquisitions by Chinese companies, and cooperation with overseas companies have occurred frequently. In the face of more and more successful cases, can we find the latest opportunities that suit us! Every weekend, we will take stock of the key points of the week for you to go to sea.
Industry voice 🔊
——A successful overseas product, from gameplay, creative freedom to resource promotion and operation, must be adapted to the local game ecology without exception.
Mao Yanhui, head of business of Mutong’s overseas branch, revealed that the “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang” product has made a lot of hero characters based on local culture to enhance players’ cultural identity. For example, the Japanese ninja, the Philippine national hero Rapp-Rapp, the Russian Martha, and the American Johnson have been added in a targeted manner. This is a localized innovation that the team is trying to take into account when trying to open up a local market. In his opinion, a successful overseas product must adapt to the local game ecology from gameplay, creative freedom, resource promotion, and operation without exception.
——Compared with the domestic single market and unified user behavior portrait, foreign localization is much more complicated.
Wang Zilei, who has served as the head of overseas business in many listed companies such as Youzu and Ledou, talked with the media and said that in China, we generally only talk about the track but not the region. Differences in payment ability and age group; but foreign countries are completely different, and game themes and gameplay are limited by the market. For example, some medieval and naval battle themes SLGs can only be released in the North American market, which makes it difficult for overseas releases to be flattened and localized for different regions one by one. .
——Every time node will create a different explosion, it depends on who can capture the market opportunities that the opponent has not yet captured.
Lu Nan, Marketing Director and Strategic Analyst of Sensor Tower Asia Pacific, said in a media exchange that the peak monthly revenue of a single product of domestic mobile games going overseas can exceed 100 million US dollars, and Sensor Tower’s monthly overseas revenue TOP30 list, the top five The income can be stabilized at more than 40 million US dollars, and the entry threshold for the list is 12 million US dollars in monthly income. “Every time node will create a different explosion, it depends on who can capture the market opportunities that the opponent has not yet captured. Take “Awakening of Nations” as an example, this game is about the theme of civilization, and the theme of civilization is on the PC side It has always existed, but Western game developers have never tried mobile games, which is why Chinese mobile games have been successful.”
Industry news🔥
[1] Drake Star, a technology investment bank, recently released the 2022 Q3 Global Game Industry Report. In the first three quarters of this year, the global game industry reached 976 public or private transactions, with a total transaction value of 123 billion US dollars. Mergers and acquisitions dominated the flow of funds. The total amount of M&A (mergers and acquisitions) transactions reached throughout the year reached 102 billion US dollars, including the largest single acquisition in the history of the game industry, Microsoft’s acquisition of Blizzard. In terms of financing, the game industry has received 685 rounds of financing, with a total raised amount of US$9.6 billion, of which 15 financings exceeded US$100 million.
[2] Microsoft is building an Xbox mobile game store to challenge Apple and Google. Foreign media The Verge reported that in the latest document of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft stated that a major motivation for the acquisition was to expand their influence in the field of mobile games, and building an Xbox mobile game store platform is their plan. a part of.
[3] Business Insider recently reported that Microsoft has laid off employees across the company. Less than 1,000 jobs were affected this week, sources said. In addition, the scope of layoffs is very wide, involving departments such as Xbox, strategic missions and technical organizations. In July, Microsoft said it planned to cut less than 1% of its 180,000 employees and slowed hiring sharply, given the risk of a recession.
[4] SensorTower announced the revenue and download rankings of Chinese overseas mobile games in overseas markets in September. Mihayou’s “Genshin Impact” ushered in a one-day revenue peak due to its 2nd anniversary celebration, and its revenue in major markets such as Japan and the United States rose rapidly, ranking first in the overseas mobile game revenue list in September. In mid-September, 4399 Games launched the Japanese version of “The Legend of the Uncharted: The Ruins of the Divine Wood”, “モリノファンタジー: World Tree の伝説” (Forest Fantasy: World Tree Legend), and topped the Japanese iOS mobile game download list for many consecutive days. The game’s overseas revenue in September doubled that of August, returning to the 24th place in the revenue list and the third place in the growth list.
[5] Netflix is about to set up its fifth game development studio in Southern California. The studio will be helmed by former “Overwatch” executive producer Chacko Sonny, who left Blizzard last year. . In addition to this, Netflix also revealed that its studio is working on 14 new games, including Braveheart 2 (released in January 2023), Might Quest, and an Assassin’s Creed co-developed with Ubisoft. “Derivative mobile games.
[6] A few days ago, Gamma Data released the “Game Industry Report for the Third Quarter (July-September) of 2022”. The report shows that the scale of China’s game market in the third quarter was 59.703 billion yuan, a month-on-year decrease of 12.61%. It decreased by 19.13% year-on-year, and the decline in the growth rate compared with the second quarter narrowed slightly, and the year-on-year growth rate turned negative compared with the positive growth in the same period last year. The poor performance of mobile games was the main reason for the negative growth of the market in this quarter, and terminals such as clients and web pages were relatively stable.
[7] Recently, Perfect World released its 2022 third quarter report. According to the financial report, Perfect World achieved revenue of 1.788 billion yuan in Q3 this year, a net profit of 304 million yuan attributable to shareholders of listed companies, and a net profit of 250 million yuan attributable to shareholders of listed companies after deducting non-recurring gains and losses. Among them, the game business of Perfect World achieved a profit of 364 million yuan in the Q3 quarter.
[8] Recently, VGChartz released data on the console sales market in the first week of October. The data shows that the Nintendo Switch is currently the best-selling game console. As of October 8, 2022, 272,442 units were sold in the first week of October. A total of about 113.83 million units have been sold so far. The Sony PS5 is estimated to have sold 238,430 units in a week, bringing its total sales to 24.23 million units. The Xbox Series X/S sold 171,434 units, bringing its lifetime sales to 17.4 million.
Product Watch 👀
[1] This week, the two-dimensional card RPG “Memento Mori” was officially launched overseas. The game was developed by the Japanese manufacturer Bank of Innovation and adopts the typical watercolor ink painting style. In the early days of the game’s announcement, it attracted the attention of a large number of players with its beautiful art and music display. Before its official launch this month, it has exceeded the reservation of one million players. After the official launch, “Memento Mori” not only successfully won the top of the iOS free list in Japan and China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, but also achieved a lot in the best-selling list.
[2] Recently, in the iPad Pro 2022 and iPad 10 new product videos released by Apple, Mihayou’s new “Xingdom Railway” tour has become an “assistance” for Apple to schedule the external display function in front of the new iPad platform. It is reported that “Xingkong Railway” is a cross-platform 3D turn-based RPG game developed by Mihayou based on the “Honkai” IP. The game has more than 7.7 million reservations on the entire domestic network, and has a high score of 8.5 on TapTap. It is expected to be launched next year.
[3] Recently, the two-dimensional Arpg game “Magic Tower” developed by Perfect’s Hotta Studio was officially launched on the Steam platform. According to the store page, the game is distributed overseas by Level Infinite, a subsidiary of Tencent. It does not provide traditional and simplified Chinese languages and is locked in the country. According to Sensor Tower data, since the mobile version of “Magic Tower” was launched globally in August, the monthly revenue exceeded 44 million US dollars, and the number of downloads exceeded 8.55 million, of which the Japanese market contributed the most, accounting for 42% of the total revenue.
[4] It is reported that the self-developed mobile game “Super Sus (Space Action)” under Giant Network has been applying for a version number. “Super Sus” is a multiplayer online reasoning mobile game developed by Giant Network. The game will be tested in Southeast Asia in November 2021, and then expanded to Latin American and Russian markets. According to official reports, as of the end of June 2022, the number of overseas registrations of “Super Sus” has exceeded 25 million, the number of daily active users has exceeded one million, and the cumulative number of gameplays created by players based on the game editor has exceeded 200,000.
[5] This week, the “Marvel” CCG game “MARVEL SNAP”, which was published by Nuverse (the brand that goes overseas for the morning and evening) and developed by Second Dinner, was launched on the global market. The distribution platforms include mobile and PC. Up to now, “MARVEL SNAP” has entered the top 10 iOS free list in 40 countries or regions.
[6] A few days ago, EA officially announced the news of “Project Rene”, a new work in the “The Sims” series. It is reported that the game is still in the early development stage, supports single-player or cooperative play, and will provide players with the same gaming experience on all devices, including mobile devices. In addition, “The Sims 4” becomes a free game from today, and PS5/PS4/XSX|S/Xbox One/PC/MAC users can download it. Two expansion packs for “The Sims 4” will be launched in 2023. DLC.
[7] Recently, Activision Blizzard announced that “Overwatch 2” attracted a total of 25 million players in the ten days before its launch. This data far exceeds the original “Overwatch”. Overwatch 2 debuted in 2016 and didn’t announce 15 million players until three months later. Activision Blizzard claims that Overwatch 2’s daily active users are nearly three times the peak of the original game. It should be pointed out that the two games are not equally juxtaposed. The original Overwatch was a buyout game, and OW2 was a free-to-play game.
[8] In the early morning of October 22, Konami held a separate online product launch for the “Silent Hill” series. This release revealed the progress of a number of products, including “Silent Hill 2: Remake”, “Silent Hill f”, “Silent Hill: Townfall”, “Silent Hill Ascension” and “Return to Silent Hill”. Among them, “Silent Hill 2: Remake” has been launched on the PS Store and Steam store pages. Although the release time is unknown, it can be determined that it is the closest work to the release.
Investment and financing express 💰
[1] According to foreign media The Verge, Riot Games, a well-known overseas game developer, officially announced that Wargaming Sydney Studio, a subsidiary of Wargaming, will be incorporated into the company. The latter will soon be renamed Riot Sydney and assist the headquarters in developing game projects such as “League of Legends (LOL)” and “Valorant”.
[2] Recently, Huanan Brain Control (Guangdong) Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (abbreviation: Huanan Brain Control) has received a new round of investment. The investors are Sanqi Lexin (Guangzhou) Industries, two investment institutions under Sanqi Interactive Entertainment. Investment partnership (limited partnership) and Wuhu Taitong Commercial Operation Management Co., Ltd. At present, 37 Interactive Entertainment has completed investment in or acquired Archiact, WaveOptics, Raxium, Digilens, Chenjing Technology, Yingmu Technology, Guangzhou Semiconductor, Jingzhan Semiconductor, Kuaipan Cloud Games, Suiguang Technology, Gravity, etc. company. The investment in South China Brain Control is also a major layout move in the field of Metaverse.
[3] A few days ago, Stability AI, an open source artificial intelligence company, announced that it has received $101 million in investment from Coatue and Lightspeed, and its valuation will reach $1 billion. This also means that the company has become the first unicorn enterprise in the AIGC field. Stability AI also said that the company plans to use the financing to continue to invest in research and development, and to expand the company from 100 to 300 people. In addition to Stable Diffusion, the company is also developing AI generative models for generating language, audio, video, and 3D.
Remarks: Some information may occur earlier than this week, but due to less (domestic) reports or not yet reported, it is included in this week’s weekly report.