The traveling giants under the moving tide

October 9, 2014, Tencent's Interactive entertainment Group under the self-research business line for the organizational structure adjustment, the original 8 studios were split into 4 studio group, under the jurisdiction of 20 studios. Through this adjustment, Tencent wants to study the line of business, "more flat structure, faster response, more efficient work," the idea is naturally through internal incentives and competition to create more suitable for flat production of mobile game products. After all, and "Tianya Moon knife" that needs more than 100 people's team to develop a few years of client-side games, "Every day cool Run", "National aircraft War" and other mobile games, such as the development of less effective fast, the advantages are very obvious, and has been proved feasible by the market.

To mobile game transformation, is more than a year to Tencent, including a number of end-travel manufacturers, one of the most important strategy, but the process and results are different.

The sluggish Giants

In the 2013, after nearly 2 years of prosperity and rapid development, the mobile gaming market finally attracted the eyes of the traditional tour giants, and began to move.

August 2013, in the agent card game "the spread of millions of King Arthur" national clothing online and achieved initial success soon, Grand President Chen The heads of all studios to deploy a strategy: In addition to the established Development and agency projects ("Final Fantasy 14", etc.) Shanda Games will no longer develop and agent new end-trip projects, Fully to mobile phone game development and operation transformation. Before the meeting, by the "spread of millions of King Arthur," the success of the impact of the royal interior has already been surging, a few big studios have to project a new hand tour projects or to compete for the hands of the agent to travel. Shanda, the most iconic company in the end of the travel era, began to transform itself into a full mobile game.

At the same time, from the end of the era of followers of the successor to become the leader of the Tencent Online mobile gaming platform, hope through the micro-letter and mobile phone QQ two large seats hundreds of millions of users of mobile communications products for their mobile game strategy escort. Prior to this, although Tencent Wireless and mutual entertainment has been self-learning and agent of some mobile games, but did not end up like the market position. Later, the effect of Tencent in mobile gaming platform, a huge explosive force, a piece of Tencent's own game in mobile gaming platform has made the pioneers coveted market results, but also to come from behind, the mobile game era leader. However, in the process of some of the loss of personnel, external product success and some of the failure of the research products, but also highlighted the original business line from the large studio architecture system of some drawbacks, so the article at the beginning of the adjustment described.

Also in the second half of 2013, the other two giants the perfect World and Sohu Tour has opened its own mobile game strategy. And Shanda through the agent game to achieve a mobile game strategy is different, the perfect world and Sohu swim chose to study, the former rely on the turn of the "Condor" in the mobile end of the same success, and the latter's "Tianlong Eight" mobile version was defeated Waterloo, This result also leads to a different game strategy after the two sides move.

After the success of the sculpture, the Perfect world has also set off a wave of mobile game development, "the magic of the mainland", "Magic Baby" and other games have come out and achieved varying degrees of success, but also allows the top to start another change: through investment in the form of some research and development team stripped out of the perfect system to set up a separate company, These companies have independent accounting, the first few products must be a perfect world operation, follow-up works can seek other distribution companies or even their own distribution, and these companies if they can be listed in the perfect world will also derive great benefits. Under the plan, 5 studios, including the "Condor Man" and "Magic Baby", will become new companies that are independent of perfection.

and Sohu Tour in the "Tianlong eight" after the defeat did not stop the pace of mobile game development, the mobile gaming department, which expanded to nearly thousands of people and developed more than 20 mobile games, has not been available, and some of the games that have been developed have failed to ripple through the market, and they have also started to seek domestic and overseas agents, And the 1 billion quota of "must win plan", in order to increase in the agent mobile game products on the advantages, but with the resignation of the person in charge also went nowhere. 2014, swimming in the continuing to study at the same time through the hands of high-quality copyright and successful development team "cooperation" development of the game, on the other hand also actively in the domestic and South Korea and other overseas markets to seek excellent game agent, hoping to rely on strong capital support in the mobile game era continue to make a difference But on the whole, Sohu tour core is still in the end of the tour, "Tianlong Eight" and its agents a series of end products for a period of time are the center of gravity, mobile games just as a useful supplement.

In the above four companies have some action at the same time, the same as the end of one of the giant NetEase seems a bit late. In the second half of 2013, NetEase's first mobile game product "Mini West Tour" is still testing, but in the early 2014 on the line for NetEase's mobile gaming business. In the agent products, although the promotion of NetEase in the first mobile game "Tower Knight Regiment" is still not in the domestic online, but the agent of the overseas Game "live Club" and the domestic game "shadow of the Blade" is also a good win, in this process NetEase in the portal, news clients, Ishin and other internal resources in the integration of the excellent results achieved, Also reflects NetEase's internal support for mobile game strategy. At present, NetEase's more than 10 studios also have a number of mobile game products are developing or testing, the total number is said to have more than 50, the number of agent products is also impressive.

Outside the Giants, the Kunlun World and Blue Harbor, which are the Up-and-comer in the end-travel business, have taken the initiative in the mobile gaming era, giants, Jinshan, long tour, snails, many benefits, electric soul, the green shore and other enterprises have to carry their own research or agent hand to the mobile game market launched a shock, even in the loss of "World of Warcraft" The nine cities that have been silent for many years have also restarted the new planning of hand-travel products ...

Problems and changes

Under the wave of mobile games, the most obvious impact of these traditional end-travel giants, but also in catching up with the wave of mobile games, the pursuit of internal change has become a necessity.

With regard to the reasons for the adjustment of the line of business, "there is no doubt that we are the most dazzling stars in the game industry in the last decade, but we are faced with new challenges as the mobile internet wave sweeps," said Tencent's chief operating officer, Ningyu, who sent a full email to the interactive entertainment group. For example, the efficiency of large team organization, the effectiveness of motivation, the impact of external entrepreneurial opportunities on the stability of the team, staff work and life balance, and so some practical and specific problems. The evolutionary force facing challenges is always the important gene of mutual entertainment development, since the beginning of this year, mutual Entertainment has initiated a series of internal and external research, hoping to explore a more suitable organization, incentive and management model for Tencent's Mutual entertainment under the environment of mobile wave. ”

Ningyu the "efficiency of large team organization," as mentioned in the mail, the effectiveness of incentives, external entrepreneurial opportunities for the impact of the stability of the team "and other challenges in each side of the company have a different performance, and these challenges are common in recent years in the big-end travel companies in the separation of entrepreneurship and poaching.

After years of development, Tencent, NetEase, Shanda, such as the main client-side game of listed companies, although the performance is booming, but the internal to emerge a lot of problems, such as the common pay upside down (new and even the school recruit staff wages than the working life and experience more rich old staff), the many restrictions on product establishment, As well as some employees in the enterprise faced with the lack of personal rise in space, personal treatment is not satisfied with the problem. On the other hand, the high demand for performance of listed companies has also caused a very conservative in their own research projects, generally will only support the market has been successfully verified the type of game or play, which also led to the lack of internal innovation, restricting the professional development of some employees. In the era of mobile gaming in a series of myths and the heat of the capital market, these problems eventually broke out and released, so in recent years, large companies leave a steady stream of employees.

And the success of the employees who left the business or transferred to the new company was a bigger blow to their former colleagues. For example, in the first half of 2014 two star products "Legend of the Sword" and "Let go of the Three Kingdoms" is such a product, "Legend of the Sword" by the former Tencent Mutual entertainment staff Wang Xin-wen and other people to complete the development, and "Let go of the Three Kingdoms" Master planning and the main art are the original perfect world employees, coupled with the former Tencent staff Wang Weifeng and other people's "PA three" The demonstration effects of other games have made the interior of the end-tour giants even more precarious and have to seek change.

August 2014, Shanda took the lead in the initiative, announced in the internal meeting of the 8 major studios will be gradually company, and 8 studios are responsible for 100 million of the equity incentive, Shanda hope to retain the core staff, while stimulating the vitality of the studio. After that, the perfect World Studio company also surfaced, Tencent also began to study the line of the studio to adjust, and this trend is also spreading to more companies.

Challenges and counter shocks

Compared with the entrepreneurial team in the era of mobile gaming, the traditional end-trip giants have some challenges when they move to mobile game development, but they also have great advantages.

As far as game development is concerned, the most important part of mobile game development is the subversion of research and development models and design ideas. It includes the adaptation problem brought by the complexity of hardware environment, the balance between the client size limit and the picture fineness, the content complexity and richness of the pursuit of the end-travel development, and the contradiction between the user's pursuit of relaxing and leisure, The difference between the update mechanism and the update frequency is the great challenge for the end team to the mobile game development. But in the game distribution, the mobile game market massive channel and the operator access, the integral wall advertisement and so on new user obtains the form, the end tour manufacturer familiar media function difference and so on is also the traditional end-travel market team faces the new topic.

But if this change can be done, then the team in the development of talent and the accumulation of game production experience, high-quality original painting, such as the improvement of the picture, the integration of operational activities into the design of the system play the end of the idea of the maintenance and extension of the game life cycle of the promotion and so will become its advantage, And compared with the start-up companies in the IP accumulation, research and development costs and cycle of the guarantee, marketing resources and costs, etc. also have a great advantage.

In the 2014, this advantage was gradually reflected. October 10, 2014 iphone bestseller Real time data show in the top 30 of the best-selling list of 29 games, in addition to 12 Tencent games, 2 supercell games and 1 Korean games, the other 14 games have 7 from the end of the company, of which 5 is from the research of 2 for the agent. If we now review the success of the domestic game in 2014, can be found in addition to the Tencent department and the legend of the tower, "Blade of the Sword" and so on a few rely on the play on the innovation to achieve success of the game, there are nearly half of the successful game from the original end of the team's hands, including "Mini West Tour", "Magic Baby", "brilliant" and other players to develop the game in hand Tour market success.

So compared to 2013, the entire 2014-year mobile gaming market has been hugely incremental, but most of it is still carved up by Tencent and several end-travel vendors-the sluggish end-travel giants have launched a knock-on impact on the domestic mobile gaming market after the mobile gaming market has had to shift to mobile games.

Focus on Tencent

In many mobile gaming areas of the end of the enterprise, Tencent is undoubtedly the biggest impact on the market, but also the most attention.

After a year of operation, Tencent Mobile gaming platform users grew 7 times times, but the impact of the old game lifecycle, platform line rhythm and the quality of the new game itself, both users and incomes are beginning to face growth bottlenecks, after three consecutive quarters of high-speed growth, Tencent expects the three or four-quarter mobile gaming platform revenue will slow. In the best-selling list of channels such as Apple, more and more game products, especially the traditional end of the competition in the field of competitors are competing with Tencent's game, and win-win, so outsiders worry about Tencent into the Bureau, such as the South Korean market, the top 20 best-selling list of 19 Kakao game of the scene will not be reproduced in the domestic market.

After the launch of Tencent Mobile gaming platform, Tencent is not like overseas Kakao and line as an open platform to operate, but the use of closed operation, the initial line of "Every day love to eliminate", "every day cool Run", "National Aircraft War", "every day rook" and a large number of self research products, And from the types of these products and play on the display of their development thinking is to imitate has been Korea and Japan and other markets proved successful product development, purposeful and utilitarian is very obvious. Although the initial period did make a great effect, but until a year later this development thinking is still Tencent mobile game self-research products, in the Tencent itself quite affected by the outside world, but also led to the lack of internal innovation.

In the agency business, in addition to acting as the "national hero", "Thunder Fighter", such as a small number of domestic teams (and with Tencent itself very large) game, Tencent's strategy has always been to agent overseas boutique Games, but the agency standard is actually closer to simply sweep the list-the competition for overseas market list before the game, But not too much to consider the real market audience demand. In this way of thinking, "Play monsters every Day", "Monster Marbles", "Candy Legend" and other South Korea, Japan, Europe and the United States hand in the best-selling list of star games have been swept into the bag, but in the domestic online after the results are not satisfactory, only the recent "Daily Millionaire" other than most of the other is far from the results of the product in comparison with overseas. Coupled with the decline in the number of successful games in overseas markets this year, mobile gaming platforms have had to shift the focus of the agency business back to home. So more types of more rich and innovative self-learning games have become the demand for mobile gaming platforms.

But the increase in the number of agents and self-learning products will also bring new challenges to mobile gaming platforms, and Kakaogame, operating on open platform access, has begun to suffer from this problem: data for August 13, 2014 shows that the game on Kakaogame has reached 549, But before there are 61 games silently offline, which means that as the number of games on the platform increased, even with huge user volume, the product wants to stand out also become very difficult, the role of the external forces of capital and so on more obvious role. And for a closed-end operation of Tencent Mobile gaming platform, there are still a lot of new games waiting to be put on the line in the current number of game products, and as the internal adjustment and incentive measures come into effect, more and more new games will compete for limited platform users and internal resources.