Chen: The wandering of investment and morals in the online gaming industry

Stable growth of the market, high gross profit margin and good cash flow, the basic stability of the industry structure, 1% of the game success rate, the public opinion of the blame, industry supervision of ownership controversy, this is China's online game.　　Do you vote or not? In the evening, the neighbors heard a loud debate, the mother scolded the more than 10-year-old son: "The teacher said you did not go to the afternoon tutorial, did you run to the Internet café to play games?" "Why can you steal food, I can't play Warcraft?" "This is the typical scene of a Chinese family arguing about online gaming.　　In just ten years, the network game from scratch, from small to large, penetrate into the daily life of millions of netizens, more as an industry, attracted many it elite and PE chase. Ten years online game feast online games is a new industry, especially for China.　　For ten years, the network game from the operation to the development, from the import agent to the Independent property rights, has become the Chinese Internet domain development earliest, the most mature industry.　　Initially, the role of domestic online gaming companies focused on operators, while game developers focused on South Korea, the entire industry chain's leading model for Chinese operators to pay the South Korean developers authorized money plus 20% operating income, and through the sale of game time, props or related services directly to provide players with value-added services. However, due to the lack of understanding of the Chinese market, unresponsive, Korean games, after-sales service and support of poor reputation, forcing Chinese companies to start developing their own games. After four or five years of development in China's gaming industry, with the accumulation of experience and the maturity of the industry, game operators began to differentiate, a large number of game companies with development capabilities springing up, and gradually dominate the game market in China. On the one hand, a large number of product-type game companies through product development, grow into a dedicated game developer; On the other hand, the operators in the acquisition of industrial chain 50-60% Income, the independent development of online games, to take into account the product development and operation of the integrated game service provider, its profit model from the beginning of the player monthly subscription to the current game free,　　Prop charges for the mainstream. To the game development and operation for both ends, the network game gradually developed to include game developers, game operators, game channels, telecommunications operators, internet cafes/chain cafes and other links of the complete industrial chain, industry income in the industrial chain of orderly distribution, and promote the rapid development of the entire industry. 2001, China's online games sales revenue of only 310 million yuan, and to 2009 has reached 27.1 billion yuan.　　When most people in the field of Internet applications still only make a yell not to make money, online games has become one of the most lucrative industries, 37.15 million of games in the happy game for the online industry chain of various businesses to pay. The scale of 10 consecutive years over 30% years of growth, not only to make China the world's largest online games market, but also to the Chinese online gaming industry has become the focus of investment. To the Grand Network in 2004 on the Nasdaq listing as the starting point, the Chinese online gaming companies to go to sea financing, nine cities, perfect time and space, Giants, Nets dragon, Jinshan at home and abroad listed online games company has used 10 fingers are not finished;And such as NetEase, Tencent, Sohu, and so on, although the market is a portal or SP, but today, online games have become an integral part of their main business. Online games Not only let these companies make a pot full of, their high return on the market after the early investment in the foreign PE to enjoy the feast, and inspire more and more PE investment in this industry: 2008, Blue Port online access to NEA and Northern Lights 25 million U.S. dollars investment, Only think of the competitive platform to access the Oriental rich sea 30 million yuan investment, long travel network to obtain Temasek, new days and other institutions, such as 100 million United States dollar joint investment; 2009, the Game Valley won Qiming Venture and Disney's Steamboat joint investment of 10 million U.S. dollars, Rice Network received qiming venture investment of 5 million U.S. dollars　　2010, five minutes of network access to DFJ 3.5 million U.S. dollars investment, China flying News received in the Chinese branch investment 10 million yuan. From the large game operators to the game platform operators, from the interactive entertainment community to social game development companies, PE to the online gaming industry in all areas of the full penetration.　　According to Chinaventure's incomplete statistics, in 2008, the number of VC cases against China's gaming industry reached 22 cases, and in 2009 it exceeded 30 cases, increasing by more than 36%. [Page] The brutal growth of love and pain grows over 30% a year, lasting 10 years. In the absence of any policy support, the online games industry this decade is completely barbaric growth.　　In this process, the game company has been PE and capital market love, but also under the brutal growth of the pain. A recruit fresh, eat the day, "gnawing old" is a common phenomenon. Although the game industry is growing rapidly emerging industries, but has encountered a new bottleneck, the current market applause and draw almost all of the old games played for many years. A game company often comes up with a game, and then the game is hard to come by. The Shanda network is so, so is the giant network. The Grand network relies on the Korean game "legend" to make a start, so far "legend" still occupies a large proportion in its income. Nine cities by the South Korean game "miracle" started, and then signed the United States game development company Blizzard Entertainment, the world's top online game "wow" into China, however, the loss of "Wow: Burning expedition," the proxy, its share price plummeted. Shi Yuzhu's giant network relies on the "journey" listed, after no matter is "Journey 2" or "Green journey", there is no more remarkable place.　　Two years ago, if the game company was lined up, count to count not to Tencent, and in 2009, Tencent's "through the FireWire" and "Dungeons and Warriors" have 1.8 million, 2.2 million people at the same time online, as if already more than Shanda network, in the game operators of the team wearing a flag shirt. "Masterpiece" is not much, homogeneity of the subject matter overflow. 2009, China has a total of 321 local games listed, really lucky to become a "masterpiece" is not much, the remarkable is NetEase's "World", Jinshan "Swordsman Love Network Version 3" and Kirin network of "Genghis Khan"。 To be a masterpiece, there should be at least 200,000 people online at the same time. What is this concept? It means that 200,000 of online users bring at least 20 million yuan of revenue per month to operators. In addition to the "masterpiece", most of the theme or play similar game products in the 5000 to 20,000 people on the online user volume hovering, that is, these products rely on a monthly income of about 502 million yuan to keep the team, earning a penny. Online games, it seems easy to make money, but it is really hard to make money. In addition, from the domestic game, focus on the subject, and Homogenization has reached the point of overflow. If you say that the domestic game what the most use of the subject, certainly not the Three Kingdoms.　　At present, a total of nearly 300 stand-alone version of the three theme games, in addition, the operation of the web game has 62, multiplayer online network games have 28, competitive games have 4 of the anise bean "anise" word of the pursuit of four, in the three-way network game is obviously dwarfed. Public opinion accuses the industry from growing. Although in November 2003, the National Sports Administration announced the electronic athletics as China's 99th officially launched Sport project, but online games in China's network Interactive entertainment industry, while the largest market, but also produced a game addiction, pornography and violent games, such as the more prominent problems, So that the social formation of the network game moral standards of continuous pressure. Relevant departments have also introduced a number of management measures and policies: In April 2007, the Press and publication Administration and other eight ministerial committee issued a notice to require operators in all network games to try to prevent addiction system; in November 2009, the Ministry of Culture announced that it would set up the story background, the plot language, the name setting, the task Economic systems, trading systems, such as tracking supervision; recently, the Press and publication administration has focused on the review of more than 200 online games, the intensity of the action of the rapid, unprecedented; this June, there is a real-name network game launched. Similar to China, the online gaming industry developed in South Korea has more than 75% of the people online, addicted to online games in the number of increasing. South Korea's administrative security 2009 statistics showed that the state more than 2 million people infected with "internet addiction."　　April 2010, the Korean Ministry of Cultural and Sports Tourism released the "Prevention and elimination of Internet game addiction policy" to standardize the game operators. The immortal fights, the net swims the regulation contradiction to delay not to solve. In 2009, the state Press and publication Administration and the Ministry of Culture were disputed over the ownership of the World of Warcraft: Burning expedition. In July, the Ministry of Culture approved the game, and the press and publication administration delayed approval. September 18, the Ministry of Culture held a ventilation conference, said the network game is not a publication, the Ministry of Culture is the competent department of online games. In November, the press and publication administration issued a notice to terminate the "World of Warcraft: Burning Expedition" approval, return to the introduction of the publication of the World of Warcraft application, and stressed that the Department is the only responsible for import online game approval department. The controversy over the pros and cons of online games has not ended, the network game industry supervision and ownership of power contradictions began to appear. Ten yearsAfter the exhibition, the online gaming industry found that there is no clear in-laws, who will oversee the online gaming industry?　　This confusion remains unresolved. [Page] Investment is Mr Ma has repeatedly said that Alibaba will not be involved in online games: "China is only one-child family, children are playing games, what will the country do?" So we don't have a penny for the game. People vote, we applaud, but we don't, it's one of our principles. "Alibaba 10 years of focus on E-commerce, even if the wind and rain, this is admirable, but completely from the moral level to determine whether or not to invest in online games, is one-sided, after all, online games have become a part of the life of many netizens, blocking is not feasible, and only the way." Even if Alibaba does not do, also need someone to do, cannot let the foreign culture completely occupy this brand-new position.　　And in the controversy of the moral standards, the purely technical level to see online games, casting or not, but also a difficult decision. From the business model, online games have the most mature and clear business model, not only the high profit margin level, cash flow is also very good. From the number of listed companies, the current domestic listed online games company has only a 23.220,-0.31,-1.32% network, China's capital market for online gaming has only just begun to accept. The overall scale of the Korean online game market is similar to China's current, is also more than 20 billion yuan, but the entire South Korean listed online games company has more than 20, from the quantity, the Chinese net swims the listed company is not too many, but is too few, the net swims industry exists the capital market opportunity to be obvious.　　But from the industry as a whole, the improvement of operating threshold, product research and development threshold of the reduction, so that the success of online game replication becomes more difficult, looking for the next Chen, MA more like the "impossible task." At present, operational capabilities and product development capabilities have become the core competencies of online gaming companies (drawings). Among them, the operation ability is related to the time, its promotion needs not only the time to accumulate continuously, also needs the massive capital investment. Moreover, the operation ability belongs to the resource-intensive factor, and the cost of the network game users is increasing today, and its construction costs are also increasing. Research and development capabilities are related to elasticity, reflecting more speed, including the speed of the Internet, the speed of the game itself.　　In general, online gaming companies if not in the research and development of 3-5 years to show enough speed, the market recognition, can generally be determined not to have the potential for explosive growth. Online games companies in the early days are generally in the first quadrant, both sides are not strong. Thereafter, or to the third quadrant development, build their own operational capabilities, once the formation of a strong operational capacity, will build their own moat, to form a continuing advantage, or to the second quadrant development, focus on resources to develop quality products.　　However, due to the rising operating costs, operating capacity gradually formed an oligopoly, more and more focused on the platform such as Tencent, so the product research and development to become more companies choice. For most gaming companies, the fourth quadrant is often far awayAvailable, the second quadrant and the third quadrant of the company have been listed and become the industry's giants.　　For PE, investment in the online gaming industry, only in the first quadrant to explore the potential to enter the second quadrant of the companies-they or in new areas or new market segments have a prominent research and development capabilities, or in the product derivative market and complete industry chain also has sufficient development capacity-will create a possible investment opportunities. On the one hand is the concentration of operational resources and operational capacity, on the one hand, the product research and development team dispersed and numerous, although the first quadrant of the game company can provide a large number of investment targets for PE, but in the current basic stereotypes of the market pattern, there is potential to become the first echelon of the object The domestic average paid online user in 5000-10000 People's game, basically can feed not more than 100 people's game team. And such a scale of game team and game products, everywhere in the country, even if it can not grow up, short-term rapid fall of the possibility is not.　　Faced with so many choices, investment depends on the team's judgment, "investment is cast" in the current online gaming industry is fully reflected. From the grand beginning, the overseas capital market has repeatedly appeared the legendary story of the domestic network game company listing. But until the 2010 gem, the domestic capital market just ushered in the first share of the network game, the local PE finally from the gem listed in the first green treasure net tasted the success of the taste. Relatively stable growth of the market, high gross profit margin and good cash flow, the basic stable industry structure, 1% of the game success rate, the public opinion of the blame, industry supervision vested power controversy, this is China's online game. Do you vote or not? Zhong Qing Bao Network, is the first online game in China, she will be the last family?