Home » The game version number has become “hard currency”, and the industry has calmed down.

The game version number has become “hard currency”, and the industry has calmed down.

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The game version number has become “hard currency”, and the industry has calmed down.

With the resumption of the issuance of a new batch of game version numbers, does it mean that the spring of the game industry has arrived? A few days ago, according to the inquiries of The Paper, among the first batch of 45 games that received version numbers this year, at least 8 game publishing companies experienced abnormal operations such as team disbandment and business layoffs, with an abnormal proportion of about 17%.

A game company practitioner told The Paper that the resumption of version number issuance may bring a positive trend to the game industry, but the industry still maintains a calm and wait-and-see attitude. In 2021, the phenomenon of robbing talents with an annual salary of millions may be difficult to reproduce. .

On the evening of April 11, the State Press and Publication Administration officially announced the approval information for domestic online games in April: 45 games were approved. Among them, Baidu, Gigabit, Xinxin Network, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment, Youzu Network, Zhongqingbao, Lilith, and Chuangmengtiandi all have games listed. It has been nearly 8 months since a batch of game version numbers were announced in July last year.

The version number has become “hard currency”, and the industry as a whole tends to calm down

For game industry practitioners, on the night when the version number was resumed, they cheered as much as the Chinese New Year.

On the day when the version number was resumed, Huang Yimeng, CEO of Xinxin Network, said in a circle of friends: “Make dumplings tonight”, and Gao Liandun, President of Chuangmengtiandi, shared a song “Feeling Good”; The champagne is open.” Junhai CEO Chen Jinhai said in a circle of friends at 5 in the morning: “It’s really not easy, one project for three years.”

Huang Yimeng, CEO of Xinxin Network
Huang Yimeng, CEO of Xinxin Network

Gao Liandun, President of Dreamworld
Gao Liandun, President of Dreamworld

Youzu CEO Chen Fang
Youzu CEO Chen Fang

Despite this, the boosting effect of the version number on the game industry is still obvious. Judging from the market performance, the second day after the release of the version number was restored, the entire game sector became popular as a whole, and the market gave a very intuitive response to the restart of the version number.

On April 12, Glacier Network (300533), Dasheng Culture (600892), Youzu Network (002174) and other game stocks opened daily limit, Zhongqingbao (300052), Gigabit (603444), Sanqi Interactive Entertainment (002555) Soaring more than 7%. But by the end of the day, the company’s stock price had begun to fall. Taking Sanqi Mutual Entertainment as an example, after the opening price went up rapidly, it quickly dived to the green, fell more than 7% at one point, and finally closed at 23.63 yuan, down 1.95%.

According to the reporter’s understanding, at present, the industry is still taking a wait-and-see attitude towards the resumption of version numbers. Many practitioners said: “It is still necessary to wait until the next version number is issued to have a clearer grasp of the current trend.” A practitioner from a leading enterprise in Shanghai told reporters that the version number issued this time is not for T1-T2. The impact of the company is not great, because the original cash flow is relatively abundant, and it mainly affects small game companies and work more, which will directly affect their revenue.

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However, some game companies have begun to transform and adjust. According to public phone calls, The Paper reporters tried to contact the registration and operation units of various games including “Magic Eye Fight”, “Dream Puppy”, “Little City Lord”, etc., but were either told “wrong number” or unable to connect to the phone. .

Industry insiders told The Paper that it is not uncommon for team adjustments to be made before the release of the version number is suspended. For example, when a company initiates a research and development project, it may be optimistic about the prospect of the project, and then start research and development and apply for a version number, but the application process takes about half a year to a year, and various emergencies may occur during this period. “Even if the version number is issued, maybe the game has already stopped research and development, or has given up on commercialization. The suspension of the version number is only aggravating the situation.”

From the perspective of recruitment, the version number has become the “hard currency” for game companies to attract talents. On the second day after the version number was restored, a game company changed its recruitment notice on the homepage, which highlighted: “The research project has obtained the domestic version number.”

“According to the tradition of previous years, gold three and silver four have always been the seasons with more frequent talent flow in the game industry, but this year is completely different.” Industry insiders told The Paper. Affected by the widespread layoffs of Internet companies this year, before the version number was restarted, large companies sought to transform, and small public announcements sought to survive. The pace of expansion slowed down, and the liquidity of the talent market became worse.

A number of industry insiders said that the resumption of version number issuance may bring about a new round of recruitment, but it is difficult to return to the “people-snatching war” in 2021. “After this round of version number suspension, most game companies are actually quite sober, and the requirements for talent recruitment may be higher. After all, the current version number is a scarce resource and cannot be wasted. I want to make sure the project is done well. There needs to be better talents.” Zhang Xiong, an observer of the game industry, introduced to The Paper.

“In the case that the entire game industry is going overseas, most game makers also focus on overseas, so such talents may become the industry’s sweet pastry.” Zhang Xiong believes.

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Previously, a person in charge of a game industry department revealed to The Paper that the game industry has a large turnover of talents, and there will be a “people-robbing war” around 2020, and many companies offer extremely high salaries to tap talents.

“In 2020, a company publicly stated that it would use an annual salary of one million to recruit artists from all over the world; the salaries of scarce jobs such as TA, engine, and art in the Shanghai game circle will increase by 20%-30%; a new cutting-edge factory is recruiting a Tencent plan, Don’t hesitate to pay 30w signing fee; many recruited HR are under 30 years old, but their annual salary is as high as 700,000-800,000.”

According to the reporter’s observation, the current resumption of the first batch of version numbers has not had a significant impact on the game talent market. “The main reason is that the total number of edition numbers issued in this batch is relatively small. It can only be said that the situation has improved marginally, but it has not reversed.” An industry insider said.

Brokerages pay attention to the recovery of the game industry’s valuation

In June 2016, the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued the “Notice on the Administration of Mobile Game Publishing Services” (hereinafter referred to as the “Notice”), proposing that unapproved mobile games should not be published and operated online. Since then, the version number has ushered in a wave of explosive growth.

According to the statistics of The Paper, the cumulative number of domestic and imported online game version numbers issued in 2017 was 9,368, in 2018 it was 2,064, and in 2019-2020, the number of version numbers was 1,570 and 1,405 respectively. In 2021, the number of game version numbers that have passed the review is only 755, and the number of version numbers shows a clear trend of decreasing year by year.

Previously, the game version number has also experienced a round of suspension: due to institutional reforms, the version number was suspended for 9 months from March 2018, and resumed in December 2018. The period from the issuance of the “Notice” to the first round of suspension was the peak period for the number of game version numbers: according to statistics, the version numbers issued between July 2016 and March 2018 accounted for the number of game versions that have been reviewed for 11 years. 68% of the total number.

“The number of version numbers during that period can be seen as a wild growth. In the past two years, with the tightening of industry policies, including the formulation of relevant norms, the total number of version numbers issued has also reached a stage of gradual regulation.” A brokerage Analysts told The Paper reporters. “For the entire industry, the restart of the version number actually means that there will be a new round of competition. In the context of total regulation, if you want to apply for a scarce resource such as a version number, you must consider the premise of game content compliance. Under this background, the first to get the version number can only improve the quality, and in this context, it will also promote the healthy development of the entire game industry.”

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From the perspective of the capital market, the overall confidence in the game industry is still shown. China Merchants Securities Research Report shows that with the expected release of the later version number restart, it is expected that the game sector will usher in the first round of rebound. Games going to sea, metaverse and VR/AR games will become the core driving lines of this year’s game sector.

China Merchants Securities believes that compared with the chaotic game industry version numbers around 2018 and the lack of supervision of special categories of games such as chess and cards, the overall order of the current game industry is better. In addition, various game companies actively embrace supervision and implement regulatory requirements efficiently and strictly. The protection of high-quality game products can also be achieved under strong supervision.

Sinolink Securities analyzed in the research report that the valuation of game companies is currently at a historically low level, and it is concerned about the recovery of the valuation center of high-quality game companies. For example, game companies represented by Tencent are still at a relatively low level of valuation. With the resumption of the release of version numbers and the continuous advancement of games overseas, the assets of high-quality game companies can be further deployed.

It is worth noting that, including the above-mentioned two securities companies, many research reports have shown almost unanimous interest in the overseas business. One of the game companies that has obtained the version number this time, Lu Hongyan, the chairman of Gigabit, also stated at the performance meeting recently that the company requires that the theme of the new project can be released overseas at this stage.

“Going overseas with high quality is still the main line of investment, and we should pay attention to the internationalization process of listed game companies. Under the background of shortage of traffic and total control, the growth of the domestic game market has slowed down. Large-scale and high-quality domestic games going overseas are more in line with the cultural export orientation. At the same time, games as content products also face smaller overseas regulatory risks compared to platforms going overseas,” said a brokerage research report.

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