BABA has fought a turnaround in the game, but this victory has nothing to do with BABA's entertainment.

Later LatePost reported that the Interactive Entertainment Division (Interactive Entertainment) to which BABA's game business belongs will be upgraded to an independent business group as a whole, parallel to BABA's entertainment. Yu Yongfu, chairman of Gaode Group, will be in charge of BABA's game business on behalf of the group, and the current position of Zhan Zhonghui (nickname Ding Dong), head of game self-research business, will also be adjusted upward.

Last year, the strategic mobile game "three Kingdoms Strategic Edition", which was launched last year, once topped the domestic iOS game bestseller list, and then basically stabilized in the top 10 of the game list. for nearly half a year, the "three Kingdoms Strategic Edition" and the later strategic card game "three Kingdoms Fantasy mainland" even competed with Tencent and NetEase, Inc for iOS game bestseller list Top 5.

Compared with the emergence of the game businessBABA's entertainment has been cut continuously over the past two years, and the territory is getting smaller and smaller.

BABA's business in Yu Yongfu era once included Oneness Group (Youku Tudou), UC, Ali Pictures, BABA Music, BABA Sports, BABA Games, BABA Literature, BABA Digital Entertainment Division, etc., with a large lineup.

However, over the past three or four years, the various lines of BABA's entertainment have been continuously adjusted and independent, and now the name of "great entertainment" no longer lives up to its name. When BABA's organizational structure was adjusted in 2019, UC, BABA Literature and Xiami Music were merged into the innovative business group, and only Youku, Ali Pictures, barley and games were left behind. Now the game has also been stripped off.

Unlike the innovation enterprise group,The game is a cornerstone business with the potential to become a cash cow.. BABA won the first battle of integrating the game business, although there are also reasons for high purchases-the "Strategic Edition of the three Kingdoms" has long occupied the top spot in the promotion of mobile games-but after the acquisition of Jianyue, the effect of BABA's game restart has been shown. The road of "R & D + buying" has also been proved to be feasible.

Abandon release, go to research and development, BABA game has undergone a very obvious turn, which can be seen in the business and organization. From the point of view of specific businessThe prospect and Qian Jing of BABA's "mutual entertainment" are more optimistic than "entertainment".

From this point of view: BABA game independence, does it mean that the big entertainment is not far away from the sale?

At this point, the alphabet list asked BABA for confirmation, and the other side replied "thinking too much".

Although Wang Xing said that BABA's abandonment of entertainment has entered the countdown, there is no evidence that BABA's entertainment has been put on the shelves.

The decline of BABA's entertainment is obvious, but putting the blame on BABA itself may be too harsh. in fact, BABA's core business-- long video industry-- is trapped in a quagmire of no hope as a whole. Tencent Video and the first two industries seeking a merger is proof.

To a certain extent,The constant subtraction and adjustment of the organizational structure of great entertainment is more like a correction of the radical line of the past.

Although the great entertainment in Yu Yongfu's era is great, there is a lack of logical connection between various sections, such as the innovation enterprise group, which is quite far-fetched in the big entertainment, and it is taken for granted that independent groups are taken for granted.The reason why BABA's entertainment is so large, independent listing is likely to be a strong motivation-a wide range of business to facilitate large valuations.

When Yu Yongfu was interviewed by Ma Xun, the founder of the alphabet list at the end of 2017, he revealed a very strong desire to list Dafu independently. But since 2017, BABA's organizational goal has been "coordination" rather than "separation". Since Yu Yongfu left office, neither Yang Weidong nor Fan Luyuan has received the title of "Chairman of BABA's Board of Directors of Culture and Entertainment".

Yu Yongfu, the master of integration, spent two years not kneading the scattered entertainment into a fist, probably because it was impossible to make a fist at all. On the one hand, as Yu Yongfu said in an interview, "Great Entertainment is like Silicon Valley + Hollywood." How to balance content and technology is a global problem. "on the other hand, if you pinch Silicon Valley and Hollywood together, you may be wrong in the first place--Integration itself is vanity.

In contrast, BABA's big entertainment rivals, Tencent Video and iQIYI, Inc., do not take a wide range of business as their goals-Tencent video and Tencent interactive entertainment business are linked and not subordinate-but concentrate on doing long videos. Although the industry as a whole is depressed in recent years, it is above Youku in terms of content production, user data and revenue.

From this point of view, continuous "slimming" is not a problem of BABA's entertainment.The real problem with BABA's entertainment is that since the unrealistic goal of independent listing has been abandoned, the adjustment of the organizational structure should be put in place in one step, instead of cutting one business department a year, creating a weakening impression on the outside world.

In the final analysis, there are great difficulties, and so is BABA's entertainment.

1

Jack Ma gave Yu Yongfu his calligraphy "Yongfu" and placed high hopes on him: "do not be assimilated by e-commerce, you should maintain the characteristics of non-e-commerce." "

Now, this "Yongfu" has given the game.

After Yu Yongfu joined BABA, he was in charge of BABA's core business lines. BABA's mother, Big Entertainment, UC, and Gao de all left his footprints. After leaving the post, Yu Yongfu also held some investment posts, but his relationship with BABA's actual business is relatively far away.

The only Title that can be talked about is "Chairman Gao de". "later LatePost" reported that Yu Yongfu invested so much energy in Gao de that he would attend meetings above P9.

Among the enterprises invested or acquired by BABA, Gaode is one of the enterprises with relatively good development. Yu Yongfu was appointed president of Gao de in March 2015. he was ordered to integrate Gao de. He decisively cut down O2O business, focused on map services, and led Gao de on the right track. Even now, Gao de will be able to outdo Baidu, Inc..

Gao de's yearning for local life has never stopped, and in recent years, he has gradually opened up Alipay, word-of-mouth, and so on, making efforts to travel and local life business. At the "2020 Travel Festival press conference" in September this year, Amap announced that he would officially enter the field of life services. increase the operational weight in the field of travel and local life services.

It is hard to say how to attack Meituan from the side in the future, but it is enough to highlight the importance of Gao de to BABA's local business.

In retrospect, although UC and Gao de have no big bright spots in recent years, they have also made some achievements in their respective fields, and another reason may be that the two businesses of browsers and maps are relatively outdated, and the overall market is relatively small and unnoticed.

Yu Yongfu in charge of BABA entertainment, in this field, is actually with Tencent, NetEase, Inc and even wandering, Panax notoginseng and other game manufacturers, internal and external challenges are not small.

First of all, internally, BABA basically concentrated on the "distribution line". The excellent results of the self-research business line made BABA have to pay more attention to the self-research game business with the Jianyue team as the core, and this attention rose directly to the independence of the interactive entertainment business department.

The integration of organization and people is a big challenge for BABA to entertain each other. Yu Yongfu has enough weight in this respect, and secondly, he has a lot of history with Jian Yue team.

In September 2017, Yu Yongfu, then chairman and CEO of BABA, issued an internal letter announcing that Guangzhou Jianyue, founded by NetEase, Inc COO Zhan Zhonghui (Tinker Bell) and others, had been merged into BABA's game business group, and Zhan Zhonghui was in charge of the Interactive Entertainment Division.

BABA's negotiation process for the acquisition of Jian Yue is not short. As early as in early 2017, it was rumored that Jianyue Game was acquired by BABA. At that time, not only BABA was involved in the acquisition. Yu Yongfu, as the main person in charge of BABA's entertainment, could not have participated in it.

In the final analysis, BABA's mutual entertainment can also be regarded as the heritage of BABA's "Yu Yongfu era".

If BABA mutual entertainment is upgraded to an independent business group (or at the same level as the big entertainment group), a very obvious problem is that Zhan Zhonghui is still underqualified in BABA, which involves coordination and cooperation with other businesses and resources with Zhan. Even to communicate with the highest level, you need a more important person to back up.

In the end, BABA chose Yu Yongfu.

2

A noteworthy problem is that BABA was one of the businesses that Ma Yun paid most attention to in the later period of his administration. He once put forward the "double H strategy" with equal emphasis on Health and Happiness. Big entertainment is the most direct business to achieve Happiness.

However, BABA's entertainment continues to fall in years of huge losses, market share shrinks, revenue is difficult to improve, if the rumored Tencent video acquisition of iQIYI, Inc. becomes a reality, BABA's living space will undoubtedly be further squeezed.

But Mr. Ma really needs an explanation. "mutual entertainment" instead of "cultural entertainment" may be the most appropriate step. After all, "mutual entertainment" is also Happiness or the joy of making money (Happiness).

Sensor Tower data show that telepathy Mutual Entertainment has steadily ranked among the top five mobile game publishers in China for nearly half a year, and its "three Kingdoms Strategic Edition" gold-absorbing ability ranks first in SLG (real-time strategy) games, while the income of the strategy card game "three Kingdoms Fantasy mainland", which has just been tested recently, is also in the leading position in the Chinese market.

Unlike BABA Mobile and Digital Entertainment Department playing games before, Jian Yue's merger with BABA has brought strong research and development capabilities, which is the key to its ability to create a big IP-derived mobile game called "Records of the three Kingdoms".

Jane Yue founder Zhan Zhonghui is a veteran of NetEase, Inc. When he left office in 2011, he was NetEase, Inc COO, the executive producer of popular games such as "A Chinese Odyssey 2" and "Fantasy Journey to the West". He has rich experience in game development, operation and management. Another founder, Chen Weian, is a former vice president of NetEase, Inc, while CTO Wu Yunyang (Yunfeng) has led the development of self-research projects such as "A Chinese Odyssey 2" and "Fantasy Journey to the West".

With the decline of major distribution channels such as Nine Tour and Pea pods, BABA has lost enough cheap flow in game distribution, so it is inevitable to reduce investment in the distribution side.

On the other hand, the byte jump is no longer satisfied with the profits of the distribution and leisure Mini Game, but also increasing investment in self-research, the domestic game market ushered in more complex changes.

BABA, on the other hand, saw the space for "self-research + buying volume" to continue to break through. SLG games, especially the players with the theme of "Records of the three Kingdoms", have a strong ability to pay. In addition, due to the relatively high audience of the "Records of the three Kingdoms" series in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other regions, the two games of telepathy and mutual entertainment are expected to earn more income in overseas markets.

But it can not be ignored that the "three Kingdoms Strategic Edition" still relies on the theme to win, the user base of this kind of game is relatively narrow, and the payment rate and game balance are also the long-term contradiction of SLG games.

What is more clear is that BABA's game is still in the uplink, and the contrast between its rising momentum and the shrinking "big entertainment" is as big as it is.

3

Lei Jun once said that Yu Yongfu is a "Liu Bei-style manager", and Yu Yongfu agrees:

"to improve the ability of entrepreneurs is actually to improve the ability of the team, and it is very important to choose to be Cao Cao or Liu Bei. I choose to be Liu Bei. I am good at uniting competent colleagues from all aspects to form a strong entrepreneurial team. "

Three years in the blink of an eye, it was Yu Yongfu who welcomed the Jianyue game into BABA, and now it is Yu Yongfu who has padded a tall building to BABA's mutual entertainment business group.

After parachuting into the mutual entertainment group, the first thing Yu Yongfu needs to face may not be how to integrate with the Jian Yue team headed by Zhan Zhonghui, but how to deal with the relationship with BABA.

For big entertainment, it is naturally a good thing for a business that has been held up by itself for three years, but it is probably not easy for anyone to build another tall building, especially when Youku and Ali Pictures are not doing well.

At the beginning, the "Strategic Edition of the Chronicles of the three Kingdoms" was boosted by BABA's great entertainment, the expenditure of buying volume was attributed to the big cultural and entertainment budget, the face sold was Gao Xiaosong, and the promotion of various channels could not do without the cooperation of relevant departments.

As a result, an internal adjustment, the game this large investment in the business not only did not make money, but also the people and the organization were all cut out.

BABA made money for each other's entertainment, Yu Yongfu also made money, and BABA himself earned enough eyeballs and shouted. Only BABA's great entertainment "lost a lot of money."

BABA's organizational ability is second to none among large companies, but there is still a shortage of cadres, especially for entertainment. After the Yang Weidong incident, BABA was so entertaining that he could not find a candidate who knew both the Internet and entertainment. Fan Luyuan, the current president, has been the president of Alipay for a long time, there is no doubt about his ability, but for the entertainment circle, he is a complete layman. We all know that Jack Ma praises the layman, but Jack Ma's experience doesn't work all the time, otherwise BABA would have done it a long time ago.

BABA's big entertainment "game" was handed over to BABA to entertain each other, and perhaps the latter was closer to Jack Ma's goal than the former.