Miha swam

Wen | Source Sight Keji

The game world is changing.

Mihayou once shines in the global game market with its hit games and built a huge second-dimensional game empire. Its works such as “Original God” and “Collapse: Star Dome Railway” are deeply loved by players.

However, Mihayou, which is trying to transform, is also in a period of pain. Recently, some media broke the news that the sales volume of Mihayou’s three main game products may drop by nearly 10 billion last year.

In terms of competitive landscape, domestic and foreign manufacturers have increased their number of secondary tracks. The rise of new forces such as paper folding games and Eagle Corner Network, and the continued layout of traditional giants such as Tencent and Netease have made Mihayou face a more intense market competition.

Under the market structure surrounded by wolves, Mihayou’s past “Original God” dividends are gradually being diluted. This trend of losing each other reveals a cruel reality: when the industry collectively enters the threshold of open world and 3A-level production, Mihayou’s advantages in art, pipelining and other aspects seem difficult to constitute a competitive barrier.

 Miha is swimming in the capital

In recent years, competition in the game market has become increasingly fierce, and the field of secondary games has become even more involved.

Mihayou used to gain a foothold on the second-dimensional track by relying on hits such as “Original God” and “Collapse: Star Dome Railway”, but new players are also constantly entering the venue, and the competitive landscape has changed greatly.

Data on the global mobile game revenue list for August released by SensorTower in 2024 showed that “Original God”,”Broken Iron” and the new book “Zero Zone” failed to squeeze into the top 20. When “Zone Zero” was launched in July, there was overwhelming publicity and broke the global reservation record for Miha Tour with 46 million yuan. However, in the end, its reputation and revenue were not satisfactory. On the day of its launch,”Zero Zone” went to the hot search after being bored. Players commented that the gameplay lacked new ideas and that it was a classic three-piece set that changed the soup without changing the dressing. On the mobile game community TapTap, its rating quickly slipped from 9 points just launched to 6.3 points.

With the development of the game industry, players have increasingly high requirements for game quality and innovation. Mihayou has always been known for its content innovation. However, as the life cycle of “Original God” continues, the content length has been lengthened, making it more difficult for the team to innovate.

Since its public beta launch in September 2020,”Original God” has maintained an update rhythm of one small version in about 25 days and one large version in about 45 days. While maintaining long-term stable output, it is also under increasing content pressure.

During the Spring Festival this year,”Original God” gave players three pesky chases to thank the players for their support. This benefit was accused of being too stingy compared with “Broken Iron”, resulting in a direct loss of millions of Douyin fans for “Original God”. This incident also reflects Mihayou’s problems in player operations and welfare strategies.

Faced with declining revenue, Mihayou began to take measures to reduce costs and increase efficiency. According to Leifeng.com, Mihayou has significantly reduced the amount of cloud use, cutting the budget of a certain cloud factory in almost half. Most of the cut was database usage. Previously, Mihayou was the largest customer of the cloud factory’s database products. One of the customers.

According to statistics from Jiuqian’s Zhongtai experts, the most important cooperative cloud vendor of Mihayou in 2022 will be Alibaba Cloud, accounting for 40%-50%. The “Bengtie” project team and the “Yuanshen” project team both use Alibaba Cloud; The second place is Tencent Cloud, accounting for about 20%, mainly cooperating with the “Undetermined Event Book” project.

However, some relevant business personnel revealed that Mihayou’s adjustment of the purchase amount was not as exaggerated as the reported cut in half, mainly due to cost reduction and efficiency improvement and Mihayou’s strategic needs to build some of its Cloud Services business. Within Miha Tour, games including “Original God”,”Absolute Zone Zero” and “Broken Iron” are all considering reducing cost and are currently in the testing stage.

 fell out of the top three

While it has been reported that the flow of water will fall in 2024, Mihayou’s market share is also falling sharply.

In the August 2024 revenue ranking of China mobile game publishers released by SensorTower, manufacturers that have developed Mini games such as “Endless Winter” have surpassed Mihayou to third place, and Mihayou dropped to fourth place. In September of the same year, although Miha Tour’s global revenue increased by 33% with the help of version 2.5 of “Broken Iron” and returned to the top three, the overall downward trend could not be ignored, and it fell out of the top three in October and November.

From the perspective of the global market, emerging game manufacturers are constantly emerging, quickly seizing market share with their unique gameplay and precise market positioning. For example, some mobile games that focus on casual competition have attracted a large number of light players with fragmented game time and simple and easy-to-use operations, who may have been potential user groups for Mihayou.

From the domestic market analysis, leading game manufacturers such as Tencent and Netease continue to launch new games with their strong channels and operating capabilities, further squeezing the living space of Miha Travel.

On the other hand, Mihayou takes game development as the core and builds an IP ecosystem business model, which exposes many problems under the plummeting tide. In the past, the profit model that relied on in-game purchases faced growth bottlenecks under the dual pressure of intensified market competition and changing player needs.

As the game market matures, players ‘paying propensity and paying habits for in-game purchases have changed, paying more attention to the cost performance and content quality of games. Although Mihayou’s games perform well in art and plot, they fail to keep up with changes in player needs in terms of paid experience and paid content design.

At the same time, Mihayou’s expansion in animation, film and television, surrounding areas and other fields is still in its infancy, and the IP value has not been fully tapped. Compared with mature IP operators such as Disney, Mihayou lacks mature industrial chain layout and operation experience in IP licensing, derivatives development, film and television adaptation, etc., and cannot maximize the value of game IP into commercial benefits in the short term.

In response to the crisis, Mihayou took measures at multiple levels, but these measures face different challenges in the short and long term.

At the market level, Mihayou actively expands overseas markets and increases its promotion in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. In the short term, this measure can increase the game’s exposure and potential user groups, but in the long run, cultural differences, market needs, policies and regulations vary in different regions. Mihayou needs to have a deep understanding of the local market and localize operations. Only then can we truly gain a foothold.

Taking the European and American markets as an example, compared with the China market, players have different preferences for the theme, gameplay and social functions of the game. Mihayou needs to optimize and adjust the game based on these characteristics. At the business model level, Mihayou may also need to enhance its influence among local player groups, such as increasing brand awareness and product sales through cross-border cooperation and joint activities.

However, cross-border cooperation requires precise positioning of partners and cooperation methods, otherwise the expected results may not be achieved and may even have a negative impact on the brand image.

At the tactical level, Mihayou speeds up game version updates, optimizes player community operations, and collects player feedback and makes adjustments in a timely manner. Although accelerating the speed of version updates can meet players ‘needs for new content in the short term, if the quality of content cannot be guaranteed, it may lead to the loss of players; optimizing player community operations and collecting player feedback requires the establishment of a sound operating system and data analysis mechanism., this also requires the investment of time and resources.

 Multi-dimensional break

From the perspective of long-term development, it is urgent for Mihayou to strengthen its core competitiveness.

In terms of R & D investment, Mihayou still needs to continue to increase its investment, improve the quality of the game, focus on the depth and breadth of content, and create a more immersive game world. “Original God” attracts players with its exquisite pictures and rich plots, but now it faces a bottleneck in content innovation and needs to invest more resources to break through. Only by continuing to dig deep into the game plot, enrich the character’s background stories, optimize the combat system, and improve the player’s operating experience can “Original God” regain the attention of players.

Building a complete IP ecosystem is an important direction for Miha Tour. At present, Mihayou has insufficient expansion in animation, film and television, surrounding areas and other fields, and needs comprehensive efforts. Adapt the IP of popular games into animation, film and television, develop more creative peripheral products, and maximize IP value. Take “League of Legends” as an example. Its derivative animation Arcane has a huge reputation, driving the popularity of the game to pick up. Mihayou can learn from this successful experience and transform IP films and films such as “Original God” and “Broken Iron” to expand the audience. group.

In the rapidly developing game market, Mihayou must always pay attention to market trends and changes in player needs.

With the rise of concepts such as metaverse, AI, and cloud games, Mihayou should not miss these trends and launch innovative gameplay and products. For example, Netease’s “Egg Boy Party” has quickly become popular due to its innovative gameplay and social attributes. Mihayou can develop new games or optimize existing games from aspects such as gameplay innovation and social interaction. At the same time, Mihayou should also strengthen interactive communication with players, timely adjust and optimize game content and operating strategies based on player feedback, and improve player satisfaction and loyalty.

The actions of friends and businessmen have also had a profound impact on Miha Tour. For example,”Love and Deep Space”, developed by a paper-stacked game, has grown rapidly since last year, and its traffic popularity remains high. This shows that Mihayou has competitive pressure in segments such as B-Girl Games, and also needs to pay attention to market segment needs and develop targeted products.

Relying on their strong resources and technological advantages, giants such as Tencent and Netease continue to launch new tours, occupying a large market share. When competing with giants, Mihayou must give full play to its second-dimensional game expertise to create differentiated competitive advantages. Of course, the successful experience of friends and merchants also provides reference for Miha You, such as game promotion methods, operation strategies, etc. Miha You can learn from and optimize based on its own characteristics.

Faced with industrial changes in which the IP life cycle is continuously compressed and user aesthetic thresholds continue to escalate, Mihayou urgently needs to reconstruct its competitive dimension through content industrialization. This includes not only hard-core technology attacks such as neuro-simulated NPC and AI real-time rendering, but also involves the ecological construction of cross-media narrative systems, so that we can hold the second-dimensional throne in the systematic offensive of leading companies such as Tencent and Netease.

For Mihayou, when the industry enters the decisive stage of striving for organizational efficiency and ecological depth, any period of technical stagnation or content gap may become a fatal turning point in the change of dynasties. nbsp;