Source: Gelonghui
After going back and forth for more than a year, the two sides are preparing to “restore the old and the good”
Recently, game stocks have reversed their rebound trend, which has the meaning of “rejuvenation.”
As of press release, Hong Kong stock game software concepts and mobile game stocks have collectively risen.$ZX INC (09890.HK)$Gaming stocks surged by nearly 24%, leading the way.$IDREAMSKY (01119.HK)$An increase of more than 4%,$FRIENDTIMES (06820.HK)$,$IGG (00799.HK)$,$XD INC (02400.HK)$Wait for it to follow suit.
$NTES-S (09999.HK)$Today's intraday rise was close to 5%, and is now up 4.36% to HK$157.9, with a total market capitalization of HK$509.19 billion.
According to reports, NetEase and Blizzard will resume cooperation. The two sides may announce relevant news in the near future, and the restart of the national service will be put on the agenda.
NetEase and Blizzard “composite”? This week or official announcement
Nearly a year and a half after breaking up, NetEase and Blizzard had mixed news about the “game CP” pair.
According to market news, NetEase CEO Ding Lei met with Blizzard's new CEO Johanna Faries, and the news of the return of Blizzard's national uniform will be officially announced within this week. The partners this time are NetEase and$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$, Blizzard is part of it.
In response to this incident, NetEase responded today that the return of Blizzard's national service will definitely be officially announced on April 10. “However, the NetEase Thunderfire Business Group is mainly responsible for this announced cooperation, and the level of preservation is extremely high.”
Looking back, NetEase and Blizzard first “held hands” in August 2008. After 14 years of long-distance running, Blizzard was the first to announce “parting ways” with NetEase in 2022.
On November 17, 2022, Blizzard stated that since the existing licensing agreement with NetEase expires on January 23, 2023, it will suspend most Blizzard gaming services in mainland China.
This includes World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III: Remastered, Overwatch, Starcraft series, Diablo III, and Heroes of the Storm.
However, the news of the CP dismantling has also left gamers very upset for a long time.
Although NetEase did its best to “save” Blizzard afterwards, the two sides were ultimately displeased and broke up.
After the break up, news of the two getting back together was heard from time to time, but until now there has been no clear official announcement.
During this period, NetEase experienced a major turmoil and “buried” the Blizzard team to develop its own products. Blizzard was bought by Microsoft for 68.7 billion US dollars and is looking for the next “interested person.”
Unexpectedly, after more than a year of wandering around, the two sides are still preparing to “repair the old”, so let's just wait for the official announcement.
The industry is in an upward boom cycle
In addition to the “Game CP” compound news, game stocks are collectively rising today, and there is also a boost in game versions.
Last night, the April imported online game version was officially released, and a total of 14 new games were approved. Since this year, a total of 46 imported games have received edition numbers, surpassing 27 in the same period last year.
Up to now, 379 new games have been approved since the beginning of the year, including 333 domestic game versions.
And in the domestic online game that has received the edition number this time,$TENCENT (00700.HK)$,$Perfect World (002624.SZ)$,$NetEase (NTES.US)$and$G-bits Network Technology (603444.SH)$Listed companies have all made gains.
Changjiang Securities said that as the pace of game version distribution stabilizes, many new high-quality games from leading game manufacturers will soon be launched. At the same time, the popularity of the mini game market continues to rise, and the game industry is expected to usher in a new round of incremental development.
As the policy continues to unleash warmth, pessimism in the gaming sector gradually unleashes, and there is a clear trend of valuation repair.
According to the “2023 China Game Industry Report”, the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market broke through the 300 billion yuan mark for the first time in 2023, an increase of 13.95% over the previous year, showing signs of market recovery.
Currently, the domestic game market is showing strong growth momentum. Gamma data shows that in February 2024, the size of China's game market was 24.875 billion yuan, up 2.17% month-on-month and 15.12% year-on-year. The actual sales revenue for games developed independently by China in overseas markets was US$1,346 billion, up 3.44% from the previous month.
Furthermore, with the wave of artificial intelligence setting off a “industrial revolution”, the game industry is in an upward boom cycle with the support of AIGC's technology.
According to Caitong Securities, several sessions at the 2024 Game Developers Conference mentioned the application of AI in the game industry, and Tencent released the Giinex game AI engine to provide rich AI solutions for the entire game life cycle from the perspectives of generative AI and decision-making AI.
Along with the advancement of AI applications, the game industry is expected to usher in an industrial chain upgrade, expanding game development space in various aspects such as game asset production, gameplay updates, and game interaction capabilities.
Editor/jayden