Changes in China’s game industry: Four key words for 2021

The “2021 China Game Industry Report” released at the 2021 China Game Industry Annual Conference pointed out that although the Chinese game market will continue to grow in revenue in 2021, the growth rate will be higher than that of last year under the influence of the gradual decline of the economic effect of the house and the decline in the number of popular products. down nearly 15%.The report also shows that the number of domestic game users is 666 million, a year-on-year increase of 0.22%,and the number of users is becoming saturated. When there is a bottleneck in the growth of local audiences, seeking overseas growth points has become the key to break the ice for major game manufacturers. “We are like captains in the era of great sailing. When our country’s resources are saturated, we bring our own fleet to the New World to look for opportunities. 2021 is recognized as the year with the least number of releases. As of December 16, 2022, 755 games have passed the review (including 679 domestic games). In comparison, there are 1,405 games in 2020. (1308 domestic models); 1595 models in 2019 (1365 domestic models). Edition numbers are often concentrated in the hands of larger companies.  According to statistics, Tencent obtained 14 copyright numbers in 2021, while Gigabit, NetEase and 43999 all obtained 11 copyright numbers. And other small and medium-sized companies are often in the hands of only 1-2 version number, or even no.

According to the Report on China’s Game Industry in 2021 released by Game Working Committee of China Phonological and Digital Association and China Game Industry Academy, the actual sales revenue of China’s mobile game market in 2021 was 225.538 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 7.57%, and the number of mobile game users reached 656 million yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 0.23%. According to the above data, Mobile game spending per user in 2021:344 yuan; In 2020, mobile game users spent 320.6 yuan per capita, while in 2019, the figure was 255.02 yuan. In 2021, The domestic mobile game industry will remain Tencent’s first and NetEase’s second.

These figures show that the growth of mobile game users in China has almost stagnant, while the per capita annual spending on mobile games is still growing significantly, but at a slower rate. After the mobile game market in Mainland China is transferred to the stock market, game products will focus on quality instead of quantity. How to win over users from the old products with high user engagement and long life cycle will be the challenge that Domestic games need to face. The quality and long-term operation of games are becoming more and more important for domestic enterprises. With the improvement of the quality of China’s mobile games, some products have gone to sea, and the flow and download performance is good. For example, PUBG Mobile and Wildlands continue to be the top grossing free games in the US, Japan and other countries. In its first three months on the market, The original God made $390 million in overseas mobile games.

According to Analysys statistics, in the first quarter of 2021, China’s user spending on overseas mobile games accounted for 23% of the overseas mobile game market, a significant increase compared to 14% in 2018. For the first half of the year, 23.4 percent of the top2000 mobile games spent by overseas users were based in China. Game industry observers Wang Wei believe that the reason that China game makers choose the cause of the sea, is a domestic game market especially in mobile game market, has high game penetration and is no longer an incremental market. The competition pressure is very high while the profit is much less than in the past. Therefore, choose a new incremental market is very rational and proper choice.” Second, there is uncertainty in the supervision of the domestic game industry.

“Games, as cultural products, can only be truly high-quality products through full competition and play the role of carrying culture and carrying forward the traditional spirit.”