Text | Game Value Theory
This summer has been called the cruelest summer season in the past five years. Many popular games were launched online in the same window, and the prices for purchases soared.
’s latest game is “Eternal Tribulation Mobile Game” which was launched on July 25th, which is yesterday. It is currently ranked first in the free list and fourth in the best-selling list. The official statement about this product is, "The game has the highest number of new players in a single day in NetEase's 27-year history."
In addition to the mobile game "Eternal Calamity Mobile", "Zero", "Need for Speed: Assemblage", " World Qiyuan " and "Heartbeat Town" were both put on the market in this hot July.
And if we extend the time a little bit, it actually includes " Dungeon and Fighter: Origin ", "Singing Tide", "Three Kingdoms Conquer the World", "Firefly Assault" and other products that can barely be regarded as summer releases. .
These products are now at the top of both the best-selling and free lists.
In one sentence, has been on the best-selling list for many years. In this summer, has ushered in a wave of drastic changes. The emergence of many new games has made the various princes who have been on the list for many years ,Tremendous stress.
This is not the end yet. In the next August, there will be many popular products that will continue to flood into the market.
days, things are really going to change.
Top products are solidifying, and new products are hard to come out.
In the game market in recent years, there is a particularly obvious trend. The list is solidifying. Among the top bestsellers, products that are 3, 5, or even 7-8 years old are Still occupying a high position. The list released by
sensor tower shows that in April this year, among the top 20 products in China's appstore mobile game revenue rankings, except for "Happy Fishing Master" and "Fire at Zombies", two obvious mass-purchase products, there are almost no products. New products released this year.
and extended the release time to more than two years, the top 20 products on the list are only " Honkai Impact: Star Dome Railway " supported by Honkai IP, "Nike Shuihan Mobile Game" supported by Ni Shui Han, IP, " Love and Deep Space " supported by Love and Producer IP.
On the contrary, this list is full of products that have been online for more than 5 years. Taking Tencent as an example, among the 7 products on the list, except for " Golden Shovel Battle " and " Heroes" Alliance Mobile Game ", and the other 5 games have been online for more than 5 years.
This trend is not only in the domestic market, but also in the global market. According to the "2024 Mobile Game Market Report" released by dataai in March, in the United States in 2023, only 13.3% of the top 1,000 downloaded games were launched in 2023 of new games, a new low in the past five years. The results of
are not unexpected. After more than 10 years of development, the maturity of the mobile game market has penetrated every corner. It seems that any gameplay and any user's needs can find a corresponding head product in the market. The competition that
new products will face is that moba needs to compete with " King of Glory ", tactical competition needs to face " Peace Elite ", 2D has " Genshin Impact ", slg has "Three Kingdoms", and fps has "Time Travel" "FireWire", match-3 games include "Happy Xiaoxiaole"...
At the same time, the overall change of the market from incremental to stock, and the change in users paying more and more attention to sunk costs have led to the solidification of the list. , it is difficult for new products to come out.
It’s no wonder that Tencent’s Chief Strategy Officer James Michel responded to questions about new products in the financial report, “Each new game must not only compete with other new games released at the same time, but also with the long-term evolution of the market. We don’t know whether this solid trend of
new products will change drastically in the future. But we know that at least in this summer season, changes are beginning to appear. .
The emergence of "Dungeon & Fighter: Origin" has caused "Honor of Kings", which has been ranked first for many years, to finally fall to the second position for a long time. The last time such a product appeared in my mind was the "Peace" When "Elite" was first launched.
"Honor of Kings" has continued to dominate the best-selling list for 9 years. This can be said to be a great product, but from another perspective, it has another meaning for the industry.
With the emergence of "Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition", the SLG track finally has a product that can compete with SLG after the unparalleled sweep of "Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition". Judging from the current situation of more than a month , "Three Kingdoms Conquers the World" is the more outstanding one, the one with better results than "Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition".
With the same category and the same cultural background, the success of "Three Kingdoms" can be said to be "pulling teeth from the tiger's mouth" without exaggeration. It has also allowed practitioners to see that even in the most unlikely tracks and categories, there are still opportunities. of.
The emergence of "Ming Tide", regardless of the hustle and bustle of public opinion, but at least one thing we can clearly see is that after MiHoYo has completed the absolute right to speak and define the second dimension, Kuro used such a product , completely tore through MiHoYo's blockade, and broke out in the second dimension, a track with countless casualties.
As for "Eternal Tribulation Mobile Game", if there are no accidents, it should have a place in the top 10 of the list in the next few years.
In addition, "Need for Speed: Assemblage", "Heartbeat Town", "Firefly Strike", "Endless Winter", "World Origin", etc. also bring a sense of freshness to the market.
So much so that this summer seems so lively, as if we have returned to the time when hundreds of flowers were blooming and hundreds of birds were singing in the game market many years ago. It is so nostalgic.
's fierce attack on the best-selling list with new products tells us that the market is still changing. As far as this summer is concerned, the game market still maintains strong vitality, and living water is constantly pouring into it.
The game market, which had been dormant for many years, seemed to have regained its vitality overnight.
Of course, we still have this question.
In the first half of this year, a total of 689 version numbers were issued, compared with 755 in the whole of 2021, 522 in the whole of 2022, and 1,076 in the whole of 2023.
then had this question: Is this summer season a clustered explosion caused by years of backlog, or is the market truly restored to its supposed vitality?
This question is actually not difficult to answer, but it is not easy to answer. In any case, enjoy this long-lost hustle and bustle moment.
