Tencent's net profit continues to decline, why is the game business banknote printing machine failed?

The picture comes from Canva.

In the past years, Tencent, who has been playing "superior students", has not been ideal this year's financial report. The net profit in the second quarter has fallen by 56%. Since the third quarter of 2021, this is the decline in net profit in Tencent for four consecutive quarters, especially As a "growth engine" and "printing machine" game business, it is less than expected. According to the data disclosure of Tencent's second quarter financial report, the game revenue of Tencent's local market in this quarter was 31.8 billion yuan, a year -on -year decrease of 1%; the international market revenue was 10.7 billion yuan, a year -on -year decrease of 1%. This is undoubtedly a dangerous signal. In the same period, Tencent's overseas game revenue can still maintain a growth rate of 31%, but this has passed one year, and its overseas business has changed from a positive increase of 31%to a negative increase of 1%.

As far as a single game is concerned, Tencent's income such as "Glory of the King", "The End of the End of the End of the End of the World" and "League of Legends" are declining. It is worth noting that, as Tencent's most "gold absorption" mobile game "Glory of the King", it has always been a contradictory body: on the one hand, its strong gold absorption ability has always played the role of "Tencent's money printing machine"; on the other side It has been controversial from all aspects since the start of the family.

The controversial hair history

As the "handle" in the mobile game industry today, "Glory of the King" was born in 2015. The earliest was revised by "Heroes". Since then, this (then) mobile game has been opened all the way. It has gradually become a veritable "king" in the domestic mobile game industry, but it has been criticized for extensive "controversy" in addition to its extensive "controversy."

First of all, from game characters, game skills to original game brand materials, Tencent has been trapped in various public opinion narratives caused by "plagiarism". In terms of game characters and game skills, Arthur in "Glory of the King" is almost the Galen version. Whether it is the acceleration silence of the first skill Q skill, the shield of the second skill and the E skill, the three -skill R skill's big sword beheaded Killing can be said to be like a god, but then Arthur made a distinctive change. This change was slightly diluted. The same thing still appeared in the characters such as Guan Yu and Renma, Luna and Jiao Yue.

Looking at the original game brand material, in April this year, the NetEase game "Painting Traveler in Time and Space" specially posted a Weibo, ridiculed "Glory of the King" to make so much money, and did not want to spend money to ask the original designer, implying that he copied the original brand material of the traveler. Judging from the posted publicity pictures, the two are indeed surprisingly beautiful in layout, layout, and color. While a series of "public opinion incidents", while they were surprised, they also put it in the narrative of public opinion at "Common" again and again.

Secondly, the King Glory was criticized by the official media because of the indulging game problems of minors. Another major criticism of "Glory of the King" is that it has poor supervision in the protection of minors, leading to excessive obsession of the game, and even being criticized by the official media because of this. According to incomplete statistics, since 2017, the official media have been obsessed with the game of minors. They have shouted more than 5 times to Tencent, and they have been stricter at a time, involving many head official media.

Finally, the use of historical figures as heroes at will cause doubts in various aspects. "Glory of the King" involves a large number of historical figures that have been tampered with gender, age, and accused of misleading young people. For example, Jing Jing turned out to be a woman, and countless historical figures of the dynasties were all criticized by people from all walks of life. In the live broadcast room of Dongfang Zhen, the "Li Bai is an assassin" in the comment area, and even let it make it even more. People feel very sad. This "poetry fairy" that has left a strong and colorful "poetry" in history can now only become game characters in other people's populations. This is not a distressing thing.

In short, from the early development of "Glory of the King", all kinds of disputes have always been with it.

Bob in the lawsuit

After the data verification of the early cold launch phase, "Glory of the King" quickly grew into a hegemon with the help of Tencent's social channels, and gradually evolved into another form of social platforms with a strong social relationship. According to the official data disclosed at the fifth anniversary of the Glory of the King, as of 2020, the daily active users of the glory of the king have exceeded 100 million, becoming the world's first daily active user of "100 million" game products, which is equivalent to equivalent to the equivalent Every 14 of the people, one of the glory of the king has become the unique hegemon in the industry.

On the one hand, Tencent's three major mobile channels such as WeChat, QQ, and Application Bao, which were rapidly growing at that time, quickly eaten the traffic dividend of early mobile game expansion. The data shows that as of the end of 2015, Tencent QQ's monthly active users reached 853 million, of which 642 million smartphones reached 642 million, WeChat monthly active households were 697 million, and Tencent Application Bao also reached 156 million monthly work. The three major applications of 1 billion levels, Tencent's mobile game has been tall and developed all the way.

On the other hand, under the blessing of strong channels, Tencent relying on the original good operating capabilities, it has continuously expanded its leading advantages, continuously promoted the iteration of self -developed game versions and strengthened product operations, so that its market share continued to increase. Data show that as of 2016, a mobile game of "Glory of the King" only occupied 95%of the MOBA mobile game market. In addition to the launch of the League of Legends mobile game version, Tencent further strengthened its domineering position in the MOBA field. But even so they are still not satisfied, they still don't want to leave any chance for their opponents. In recent years, in order to consolidate its own strong position, Tencent Games has also cooperated with its knowledge -based strategy to compete for the four roads, and continuously launched a litigation war and public opinion war, trying to establish a comprehensive market barriers for the glory of the king. For example, Tencent Games establishes the content ecosystem of the glory of the king through Huya, Douyu, B station, fast hands, Weibo, Zhihu, and various e -sports events, occupying most of the MOBA game content markets, and facing bytes to bytes The beating Douyin and the user's game video on the watermelon, but Tencent Games waved the lawsuit, and many times the second content of the user edited the "Glory of the King", and initiated a lawsuit to the watermelon video and the vibrato short video platform. , Balanced the game content of the bytes.

Even for the same type of MOBA games, the "Hero Blood War", "Heroes", "Heroes of Dawn", and Mu Tong Technology, which are bumped in the world of competitive world, have become Tencent Suppress the target.

In fact, relying on a strong legal team, the lawsuit of Tencent Games is not just to protect its own rights and interests, but is full of offense.

According to the results of netizens' consultation of China Judgment Document Network, within the 3 months of March to June 2020, Tencent has preserved more than 20 companies in different fields, involving assets of 160 million yuan, and its legal team " "Effective" can be seen from this. In contrast, Alibaba and Baidu involve less than 10 records of property preservation each year. There are only one or two real preservation documents, which are very obvious.

In the long run, the harm brought by such litigation warfare is very huge: First, it is used as a means of commercial warfare to solidify the industry competition and cause substantial monopoly; the other is to affect innovation and kill the innovation and creation of SMEs. For example, frequent judicial lawsuits and preservation are easy to cut off the cash flow of enterprises that cause corporate capital chain to break, and even directly lead to bankruptcy closure.

Judging from the results, such behaviors are also violated with market laws (without competition, the enterprise itself has lost its vitality). The weak growth of its local market and the decline in overseas markets are explaining this point from the side.

Anti -monopoly sharp sword high suspension, Tencent's banknote printing machine fails?

From a broader dimension point of view, under the industry's antitrust, Tencent's "protective shield" built by the "social empire" was being impacted by all aspects.

First, due to the increasingly stringent protection of minors and the top of adult game user growth, the "advantage" market that Tencent Games lives on survival is facing heavy pressure. According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report" jointly released by the China Game Industry Research Institute and the China Institute of Music Number Association Working Committee, as of the end of 2021, the number of domestic game users has reached 666 million, a year -on -year increase of 0.22%. Essence At the same time, with the promotion of the protection measures such as real -name authentication and restrictions on children under the age of 12, the overall structure and paid mechanism of game users have been further standardized. In this case, Tencent, which has jumped at the forefront of multiple game fields, has already felt the pressure of growth in advance (the decline in performance in this quarter is evidence).

Second, with the dominance of various industries to dominate the market position, the overall business environment is affected, and the state has also begun to promote the continuous improvement of antitrust law. Coupled with the "bytes" bitter Tencent for a long time, Tencent will inevitably become a "land of artillery and fire." It is reported that the latest anti -monopoly law in June this year has added a number of measures including the introduction of a fair competition system, increasing illegal punishment, and economic regulation of digital platforms to comprehensively rectify the disorderly expansion of capital and regulate the market competition environment. In this context, "bytes" were "suppressed" earlier, and they are actively safeguarding their rights and interests through legal means.

The third is that with the advent of the boutique game, the market has called for more original games. The original design capabilities and operating capabilities of the game have become more and more important. In recent years, with the growth of a large number of domestic game original design manufacturers, there are more and more. The boutique game has been the market of Tencent's "Glory of the King".

Throughout the history of Tencent games, it is not difficult to find that "post -developers" and "micro -innovation" have always been the key to the victory of Tencent games. In short, Tencent is more good at "verifying successful product types+strong distribution capabilities+improvement of operating capabilities" in the game market to promote business growth. Getting the leading advantage, this time in the past, the game category was unsaturated.

- END -