ChinaJoy is not so hot: it looks like the same old faces

The summit forum held one day before ChinaJoy (China International Digital Interactive Entertainment Expo, hereinafter referred to as "CJ") officially opened was a bit like the annual gathering place commonly agreed upon by game manufacturers.

However, the most obvious feeling of the 2015 ChinaJoy 2015 Summit Forum was that it was a little underpopulated. At 10:30 am on July 29, less than half of the seats in the venue were still waiting to be filled, and the situation did not improve much in the afternoon.

In fact, whether it is old-brand PC games, new mobile games, or distribution channels, all the manufacturers that were supposed to come in 2015 have basically arrived, but it still seems to be the same old faces.

Behind this, after two years of active capital investment in the gaming industry, the highly concentrated gaming industry has successfully driven out many small teams. At the same time, the game manufacturers that have successfully stayed are also busy discussing how to survive better in a more brutal competitive environment.

Only when you spend 40 to 50 million on marketing can a game have a market?

Although the competitive landscape has become more sensitive, the entire gaming industry still delivered good results in the first half of 2015.

According to the data of "China Game Industry Report", the actual revenue of China's game market (including online game market, mobile game market, stand-alone game market, etc.) reached 45.85 billion yuan from January to June 2015, and the actual sales revenue of overseas market reached 1.76 billion US dollars during the same period. Among them, the actual sales revenue of client game market reached 26.71 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%; the actual sales revenue of web game market reached 10.28 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12%; the actual sales revenue of China's mobile game market reached 20.93 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67.2%.

However, even though the mobile game market performed well, game manufacturers were keenly aware that the market had changed.

The mobile card game "Dota Legend" released by Longtu Games was the biggest hit at CJ in 2014. However, Yang Shenghui, the founder and CEO of Longtu Games, is now confused by the fact that the number of products in the industry is increasing, the quality is also improving, the user acquisition cost is increasing, and the game homogeneity is serious. "In 2014, the most important point to see whether a game will become a hit is to have a very important breakthrough in the core gameplay, but in 2015, the industry has changed a lot, and some mainstream sub-sectors have relatively good products in place."

As a result, some traditional games with high gameplay requirements are finding it increasingly difficult to gain word-of-mouth marketing, while user loyalty to new products is also declining.

"It is very difficult to successfully launch a new product. The marketing cost of a game must be more than 40 to 50 million yuan to have market influence," Yang Shenghui explained.

As the key to breaking through, the entire industry now unanimously places the key point of breaking through on influential IP, and IP has also become one of the most frequently used keywords at the ChinaJoy 2015 Summit Forum.

Therefore, competing for influential IPs has become something that game manufacturers have to do in recent years. However, the overwhelming demand for IPs has caused the prices of already scarce high-quality IPs to skyrocket.

"The competition (for purchasing high-quality IP in China) is very fierce." In Yang Shenghui's view, due to the amazing purchasing power, the licensing costs for the Chinese market in terms of IP cooperation are the highest among any country or region today.

Careful calculation in the post-IP era

The benefit of acquiring an influential IP is that it can create differentiation in terms of game themes, reduce user acquisition costs, and play a significant role in fan involvement, improving user retention and increasing word-of-mouth communication capabilities.

However, the reality that "the IP acquired at a high price fails in the market or even dies in the womb" reminds all kinds of game gold diggers that they need to invest more time to polish IP products.

In March 2015, Linekong Interactive finally launched the mobile game version of "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes", which it had obtained the official license for. "One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes" was actually an IP that Linekong Interactive signed at the end of 2012.

"(We) have been studying what kind of product this IP can make and how to make it, and have overturned version after version of ideas and plans." According to Liao Mingxiang, president of Linekong Interactive, Linekong Interactive was also interested in the movie "The Return of the Great Sage" which had previously been a huge success at the box office, "but it was already March when they talked to us, and the movie was going to be released in July. We were unwilling and unable to quickly change the skin of this IP for two or three months, so we had to reluctantly give up the cooperation on this IP."

Yang Shenghui’s view is that compared to acquiring IP, perhaps something more important is to operate game products in the long term and truly build it into a sustainable brand.

Zou Tao, senior vice president of Kingsoft and CEO of Seasun, has spent more than 800,000 yuan in the past three years to play various games on the market. However, according to his observation, although many mobile games were released in the first half of 2015, the number of products that actually achieved lasting success only accounted for a single-digit percentage.

“Although the competition is fierce, what we really need to do is to calm down and operate our products in the long term and turn them into sustainable brands. This may be much better than constantly changing games and releasing many new games a year. In fact, what really benefits users in the long run is the core gameplay, which accumulates a large number of fan groups, which belongs to you,” Yang Shenghui explained.

However, such a patient process is not easy, especially under the huge competitive pressure in today's game market.

"Although the external environment is very bad, I think the only way to produce good products and good content is to stick to our own path. Moreover, the player group is growing, and the power of players will become stronger and stronger, so the key is how to get through this stage," Liao Mingxiang added.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.