Financial Services Association, July 4 (Reporter Cui Ming) As we enter the peak summer season, the game market is bustling again. The strong addition of Tencent, NetEase, and Miha Tour added another “fire” to the new summer game scuffle.

Following “Genshin” and “Collapse: Stardom Railroad,” Miha Yu developed another self-developed masterpiece “Desperate Zone Zero” for public testing this morning.

A Financial Services Association reporter learned from Miha Tour that “Desperate Zone Zero” opened for pre-download on July 2, and once it was released, it topped the App Store free game list in more than 138 countries and regions, including the US and Japan. Currently, the number of people who have subscribed to “Zero Zero” worldwide has exceeded 40 million.

“Zero Zero” is a new urban action adventure game developed by Miha's own. Producer Lee Chun-woo revealed in an interview with foreign media a few days ago that when production of the game first began in 2020, the team was only 12 people, but later grew to 60 people during the first closed testing period, and now it has over 400 people.

According to the latest data from SensorTower, from January to May of this year, Miha Tour's “Genshin” and “Collapse: Stardome Railroad” steadily ranked in the top 20 mobile game revenue rankings in the Chinese App Store, with the two games ranked third highest. Successive successful releases have also made “Desperate Zone Zero”, which is about to be launched, more anticipated by players, and it has also invisibly raised the market's expectations for the “gold absorption” of this product.

An agency source told the Financial Federation reporter that the launch of major new games is expected to drive an increase in summer game market revenue. Gamma data shows that in July and August of last year, the actual sales revenue of the Chinese mobile game market reached 22.11 billion yuan and 22.851 billion yuan respectively, up 3.4% and 3.35%, respectively. Among them, new games such as “Against the Cold”, “Crystal Core”, and “Adventure Island: The Legend of Maple” contributed a lot of revenue.

“Major summer products continue to be released, bringing real impetus to the growth of the industry. The entire game market is further stratified — different games, with different player groups, are becoming more and more segmented.” Liu Zun, head of the DataEye Research Institute, told the Financial Federation reporter that under this situation, the living space of small and medium-sized manufacturers needs to be viewed on a case-by-case basis. On the app side, games from small to medium manufacturers may lose players due to the continued entry and breakage of big DAU games (such as DNF mobile games, “Three Kingdoms: Seek the World”, and “Zero Zone”). On the small game side, if the product is unique, it may “stand alone”, but if the big manufacturer is on the same track, it may be squeezed.

In addition to “Desperate Zone Zero,” this year's summer program also featured blockbuster blockbusters such as “Need for Speed: Assemble”, the first heroic action game “Star Breaking Dawn” from Wang Zhe Rongyao IP, NetEase (09999.HK)'s “Eternity” mobile game, and “The Sixteen Sounds of Yan Yun”.

(Compiled by the Financial Services Association reporter based on App Store information) #（Q3上市公司手游新品上线排期

Furthermore, the performance of many products, including Tencent's “Dungeons and Warriors: Origins” (DNF mobile game) and Xindong (02400.HK) “Let's Go Muffin”, which launched in June, and Bilibili (09626.HK) “Three Kingdoms: Designing the World”, which was launched in June, surpassed expectations. Agency sources said that the operation activities of these games to promote payment promotion launched during the summer are also expected to boost product turnover.

This “fairy fight” also made it difficult to buy and get customers to a certain extent. Liu Zun said that the emergence of major new tours will inevitably push up the purchase price. However, the price of purchasing volume depends on the track, theme, and style of painting, so differentiated themes or niche racetracks are not affected. Furthermore, manufacturers should not rely too much on streaming, and content influence and effective talent marketing should be carried out in cooperation.

A CIFA reporter noticed that quite a few of the new games to be released are IP games. Examples include “Need for Speed: Assemble” and “Breaking the Stars” mentioned above, “Legend of Heroes of the Three Kingdoms: Honghu Domination” developed by Zulong Entertainment (09990.HK) and distributed by 37 Entertainment (002555.SZ), and “On My Reincarnation as a Slime: A New World” by Kaiying Network (002517.SZ).

“If we only consider competition, there are too many major new products this summer, and there is little need for blockbuster IPs to come to an end. However, new products are often responsible for the company's performance. At the same time, behind big IPs are often leading companies. They have internal plans, schedules, and resource allocation. For example, Tencent's own traffic requires simultaneous cooperation. Therefore, if the manufacturer decides to end up, it is obviously influenced by various factors and will have to enter the market.” Liu Zun said.

It's worth mentioning that the summer mobile game market is also quite interesting.

After more than a year of absence, “World of Warcraft” will restart its official release on August 1, and the Battle.net service will restart on July 11. Tencent's FPS game “Operation Delta”, which spans PC games, mobile games, and consoles, will begin PC testing on July 18. NetEase's “Seven Day World” and “16 Voices of Yan Yun”, which are also three-terminal interoperable, will also be the first to launch PC versions. Also, the domestic 3A blockbuster “Black Myths: Goku”, which received the most attention in the market this year, is scheduled to be officially released on August 20. The game will be released on PS5, Steam, Epic Games Store, and WeGame platforms.

Looking ahead to the summer game market, Liu Zun said that there are three major trends worth watching. The first is the concentrated emergence of big DAU games, such as DNF mobile games, “Eternity”, etc. This type of game draws in a large number of low krypton players, monthly card players, and zero krypton players, and takes up user time for other games and even entertainment products (such as short videos). Second, mini-games from South China manufacturers represented by 4399, 37 Entertainment, and Big Dream Dragon Road are going overseas and are becoming a new force. In addition, hybrid monetization games continue to rise. Currently, more than 50% of leading mini-games use the hybrid monetization model.