01

puzzle

After spending a few days at Gamescom Cologne, Grape Jun had a few feelings. Because the current game industry has really reached an unprecedented stage.

First, the global game industry is at an unprecedentedly difficult juncture. At this point, the mood of domestic and overseas gamers is no different.

New tours that are enough to make everyone excited are becoming less and less. On Opening Night on the eve of Gamescom, many trailers that looked good didn't cause much screaming. What made everyone cheer loudly was mostly the new works of old IPs such as Call of Duty, Civilization, and Monster Hunter.

Conversely, there are more and more reasons to make people feel anxious. So much so that at the Devcom conference before the game show, several sharing topics were laughable: "How to Break the Team in Five Easy Steps", "The Art of Shutting Down the Project", "Triple-A Game Art Is Dead", ......

In a roundtable discussion, I found that the same criticism and analysis were overheated investment and expectations, excessive development costs, unsatisfactory returns, imbalanced supply and demand, and brutal layoffs...... If they weren't speaking English, I'd think they'd be readers in the game's grape comment section.

A fat uncle with fierce eyes, whose front foot was still angrily spraying the industry at the round table, raised his hand on the back foot at another sharing, admitting that he had just been laid off in recent months; And a lot of the talks that I attended, the speakers would start by saying that we were going through a tough time.

Tanja, founder of Value Value, a game headhunting company, shared a group of survey data of mid- and high-level gamers in Europe on Devcom: in the past year, 18% of gamers have been laid off, and 6% are still looking for jobs.

The survey sample was more than 1,800 European game practitioners

To sum up in one sentence, today's market is difficult, but it is difficult for everyone to talk about masturbation, and the world is hot and cold.

Second, the global game industry is in a state of unprecedented chaos. Many teams are oscillating back and forth between buyouts and GaaS (Game as a Service), triple-A and mini-games. In the words of Leo, the head of TiMi J3 Studio, this is called "You want to be me, I want to be you". And success can come from any field, in any region.

At the reception on the eve of Devcom, when the organizer announced the results of a survey, he asked three questions from the soul of the overseas industry: Can triple-A games make money only by buying out? Is cross-platform essential for multiplayer? Is first-party platforms becoming less important? Although the results of the survey are still relatively conservative, the ability to ask these questions shows the vacillation and reflection of Western gamers.

81% of those surveyed believe that cross-platform is essential for multiplayer games

However, in addition to Activision, EA and other large companies, there are few 3A manufacturers who can understand the taste of GaaS. Sony's Jedi Trooper 2 was indeed a huge success, but just a few days ago, they spent $100 million to develop the 5v5 competitive game "Star Strike" for 8 years, and recently the PCU on Steam was only 3 digits. A widely circulated joke is that a large overseas manufacturer set up a GaaS department, which was ridiculed by domestic gamers: "If you really want to do GaaS well, how can there be such a department?" ”

After more and more people hit a wall, overseas attitudes towards GaaS are no longer as fanatical as in the previous two years. A studio director who is familiar with overseas also said that the success of "Phantom Beast Palu" made overseas realize that as long as they do the right differentiation, the buyout can also be small and big, so they went back to their old business.

In turn, the success of "Black Myth: Wukong" has also re-established many powerful teams in China to begin to evaluate the commercial potential of buyout 3A.

An industry insider told Grape Jun that two months ago, he thought that self-developed 3A could not become the choice of large manufacturers. However, according to recent statistics from an authoritative organization, among all entertainment content industries, the return rate of triple-A games is as high as 85%, ranking first, far exceeding the 30% of the film industry, not to mention the extremely risky GaaS mobile games.

When I heard this statement, Black Myth: Wukong had just been released

Tens of millions of sales have not yet been announced

In terms of platforms, console manufacturers and mobile game manufacturers are attacking more free PC platforms. "Good game, everyone buys", the boundaries are disappearing.

Obviously, this places higher demands on gaming companies. Martin Sibille, head of global console/PC publishing at Level Infinite, gave an example that Tencent is indeed good at data acquisition on mobile game platforms, but if it is to apply this set to different models of PCs and consoles, it is really not a star and a half. They're building a specialized operational tool to accommodate cross-platform, cross-business model, cross-regional distribution – which may be unique in the industry.

In the face of this situation, there are more and more overlapping fields, and the enthusiasm for communication is unprecedentedly high. It's just that because there is not a track in front of them, but a wilderness, not the head team, most of them are still confused about the road ahead.

Third, the global game industry is in an unprecedented stage of integration. The boundaries between domestic and foreign game companies, game practitioners, and users are becoming more and more blurred.

Let's count the major Chinese companies participating in Cologne this year: Tencent, NetEase, miHoYo, Xishanju, Paper, Eagle Corner, Hero Games, Lingyoufang...... The booth was full, and there was no sign of coldness. In the past, this kind of exhibition held in the West, mainly for PC/console core players, was not our home field.

The booth of "Dark Zone Breakout: Infinite" is the same as last year's Black Myth

If you color up the main halls, you'll see that Gamescom has formed at least three forces. Microsoft's booth took up almost half of Hall 7; Japanese manufacturers represented by Capcom are still strong, and the new work of "Monster Hunter" is also one of the most queued booths; Finally, there are Chinese manufacturers, among which Tencent is combined, and it has a tendency to compete with overseas manufacturers.

Swipe left and right to view. HALL 10 also has Chinese manufacturers such as Stacked Paper, Eagle Corner, Hero, and Lingyoufang, but the number of booths is large, so it is omitted.

And the penetration of Chinese game companies into Cologne goes far beyond the game booth. At the station of the exhibition hall, someone is handing out free meal replacement shakes co-branded by Genshin Impact; In the cosplay area, there are foreign players wearing the golden hoops of "Black Myth: Wukong" to take pictures; Leaving the venue, you will meet Coser who was invited by Eagle Point not far away, the Ark of Tomorrow; Walking into the nearest hotel of the convention and exhibition center, you will also see a variety of business negotiations, meetings on the event page, densely packed with "Tencent".

Swipe left and right to view

This kind of integration is not wishful thinking on the part of domestic companies. Overseas gamers can also feel the strong presence of Chinese companies.

One of my colleagues was on his way to Amsterdam on his way to Amsterdam and was accosted by two Netherlands who were localizing PUBG because he was wearing a T-shirt for Dark Zone Breakout. When it comes to Tencent's investment in Epic and FromSoftware, they feel that this company is really big.

At the booth of "Unrestricted Machine", a visiting foreigner brother saw my mobile phone and said that he was a fan of Xiaomi. I pointed to Guo Weiwei next to me and said that his boss was the founder of Xiaomi, and my brother's eyes widened: "No Way!" Hurry over to express your admiration.

Robin, the head of Devcom, also said that in the past two years, there has been an increasing participation of Chinese companies at Gamescom. They are thinking about how to get more Chinese game teams to share some of their development experience with European developers in Europe.

Topics like this are very suitable for domestic developers

These feelings converged and became the biggest question during my time in Cologne: how should we deal with ourselves in the face of unprecedented difficulty, unprecedented chaos, and unprecedented integration of industries?

Just in the days after the trip, Tencent offered an opportunity to talk to a number of overseas business leaders, and I got some answers — a person close to Steven, Tencent's senior vice president, said that Steven liked to say lately, "It's always good to add some transparency." So, this time, they all came out and told a lot of truths.

I would say that these answers are not unique, but they may be quite close to the essence of the gaming industry. Sometimes, the most difficult thing is not to find the essence, but to face the changing external environment, and still maintain strategic focus and always move forward.

02

answer

So what exactly is the answer? After chatting with several business leaders, I summarized three key words:

The first key word is Unique. In almost every conversation, I hear this word countless times.

Martin, Head of Global Console/PC Publishing at Level Infinite, concludes that in a market with oversupply and rising player expectations year on year, there is always a strong case for players to move from one game to another. This reason is often Unique.

Martin, Head of Global Console/PC Publishing at Level Infinite

Unique can exist in a variety of fields. Art, gameplay, theme...... Ordinary Unique, at least able to attract players in; The better Unique can also allow players to not find meal replacements, but also retain them for a long time and linger.

The reason is very simple, but the practice is extremely difficult, and if you want to explain it clearly, I am afraid that I will have to start a new article. What's more, Unique is a must, not a sufficiency. In the words of Leo, the head of TiMi J3 Studio, the standard for product success today is "Something best and unique".

Leo's Moments signature is also related to Unique

The second key word is impulsiveness + scientism, and this group of combos is often talked about by Leo.

What is Scientism? Shadow, the producer of "Operation Delta", gave an example: their daily updates overseas may have to meet more than 200 requests a day. "From day 10 to day 11, the retention data dropped a point, and we all thought about which path it came from and why players didn't like it."

Operation Delta

What is Impulsiveness? A good content creator must have a strong urge for self-expression. The impulse of the producer is the premise of Unique, and the impulse of the manager is the premise of investing enough resources. For example, Enzo, the president of Rubik's Cube, said that when the Rubik's Cube had less than 800 people, they invested 200 people in "Dark Zone Breakout" as soon as possible, "all in".

This set of words may sound a bit contradictory, but Feng Ji, CEO of Game Science, once shared a quote from Fitzgerald with all his colleagues at last year's annual meeting: "The measure of first-class intelligence is the ability to always have two opposing thoughts in the mind, but still maintain normal behavior." ”

The third key word is to use "oriental investment" to help each other with the industry. It's a bit of an abstract concept, but it's Tencent's way of solving the dilemma, and it's used far beyond investment. Its impact on my perception is the most special among these answers.

03

"Oriental Investment"

The so-called Oriental investment refers to a relatively loose and more humane investment model based on professionalism, but not necessarily dominated by money and equity, and is willing to help but do nothing. It does not pursue short-term profits, but wants to maximize the interests of itself, its partners and even the entire industry.

To understand this concept, we must first understand Tencent's business structure design. To put it simply, Tencent Games will divide the invested teams into two categories and provide different assistance:

For teams with less than 50% of the shares, Venture Lab will be responsible for docking to help them make their first IP, obtain cash flow, and achieve a leap from 0 to 1. The holding and wholly-owned studios will be connected by Pteam (Partner Team) to solve more problems from 1 to 10, or even from 10 to 100. "Fog Lock Kingdom", "The Last Era" ...... They are behind every product.

The pyramid of the Tencent team

The line-up of these two teams can be called luxurious. According to JOON OH SHIN (Juno), head of Venture Lab, the team of about 20 people, most of whom have 20-30 years of industry experience, including large-scale game producers, technical directors, TA/TDs, technical directors, art directors, marketing and data specialists.

For example, Ken, the head of Venture Lab's Japan division, was once the producer of three generations of "Metal Gear Solid" and is considered a veteran in the industry. Juno said that Ken often discussed projects with him, who came from a business background, and bluntly pointed out the shortcomings, "He would say that this is not good!" He's an expert in game development, I'm not, so I'll listen to the experts. ”

JOON OH SHIN, HEAD OF VENTURE LAB

Pteam has a larger team, probably less than 30 people. According to Stephane Decroix, head of Pteam Europe, two of their colleagues have been general managers – one of them has worked for Wargaming and the other has been in charge of all of Ubisoft's studios in Eastern Europe.

Stephane Decroix, Head of European Pteam

The problem to be solved by both teams was complex. First, many of the studios will have an Executive Producer who will help manage the finances and development schedule.

Second, when the studio needs it, they will call on experts from all walks of life from their own team or from the entire Tencent. In addition to development issues, they will also teach you how to create a bank account, communicate with Steam, contact distribution partners, find someone to make a trailer, and recruit......

They also have simple processes in the process, such as regular meetings, calls, and sharing. Before the project moves to the next stage, there will also be professional evaluations such as demos, vertical slices, etc. But in Stephane's words, it's the people that matter, not the methods. Process isn't the goal, connection is.

Sometimes they gather six or seven CEOs to discuss and try to solve their own difficult problems. "The more connections we have, the more neurons we connect." In some internal meetings, they also encourage more authentic sharing. "At GDC, everybody talks about success, but we can talk about failure."

Venture Lab's support for minority studios is relatively open and customized, while Pteam is more involved in the big decisions of the company's management. But in the process, the most drastic thing Tencent did was to kill the project that was too outrageous to prevent the team from going to a desperate situation. In Stephane's words, if you want your team to make a breakthrough, you have to give them the right to fail.

A senior overseas businessman believes that the investment style of Microsoft and Sony focuses on "harvest", and they are accustomed to buying IP and teams, directly controlling them, and managing them themselves; Tencent's style is more like "seeding", they are accustomed to holding small shares first, accepting a longer return cycle, allowing the invested team to keep the IP, and after trusting each other, they can increase the shareholding ratio according to the progress of the project and the needs of the team. "It's more of a partner than a father and son."

At the same time, contrary to people's stereotypes, many teams accept Tencent's investment not only because of Tencent's deep pockets, but because they have a simple human touch.

Judd, the producer of "The Last Era", once said that Tencent has been following the dynamics of EHG since the EA stage and has witnessed their dedication and growth in the past four years, which is the reason why they accept investment; In 2015, Stunlock, the developer of "Rise of the Night", approached 20 potential partners, of which Tencent was the only company to come up with a cooperation plan within 24 hours. So four years later, when they couldn't pay their salaries for three months, they took the initiative to find Tencent, and when they couldn't pay their salaries for three weeks, they accepted Tencent's investment of $4 million.

The Last Era

There is a more classic example. Tencent first met Larian CEO Swen in Ghent, Belgium. At that time, Divinity Original Sin 2 had not yet been launched, and Swen was in an old antique mansion, talking about the game's various ideas and narrative design. In the evening, we went to the restaurant next to the Earl's Castle and started talking about various TRPGs, CRPGs, Axis and Allied board games, and related World War II history over beer. Years later, this is the story of Larian winning the TGA Annual Award for "Baldur's Gate 3", and Tencent became the winner behind it.

Baldur's Gate 3

A Tencent employee who has been in charge of evaluating these products concluded that Tencent's investment does not pursue quick returns, and it rarely signs a VAM, but hopes that everything will happen because of its own help. "A game company is not a vague organization, everyone is a specific person. You have to make others feel that you really understand to have a chance to impress them. ”

In the process of frequent communication, everyone is also learning about each other's culture and learning from each other's strengths. If you've heard Juno from overseas, try to pop up a few words of Chinese vocabulary; After listening to the person in charge of Level Infinite PR with a high nose and deep eyes, and communicating fluently with everyone in Chinese, you will realize that through Tencent, many gamers around the world are loosely and closely connected with each other.

Now, you may be able to understand the meaning of "Oriental Investment" - with the most professional cognition and team, and the most flexible figure, slowly and inclusively, and strive to make as many friends as possible succeed in a long enough cycle.

To use an inappropriate analogy, Tencent is a bit like a happy brother in the circle, who eats with you at every turn, asks you if you have a good project at hand, and wants to join a gang. Because the conversation was speculative, you asked him to invest a little, and it turned out that the old brother was familiar with the company's management and industry trends, knew all the big bulls, and could also introduce new technologies and new models......

Two years later, you accepted a new round of capital injection from your brother, and your business was booming, looking at more and more friends at the celebration banquet, you finally asked the question that you had been puzzled for a long time: "Brother, how do you feel that you are clear?" The old brother smiled: "I understand a little, a lot of friends have done a little bit." Don't think about it, this track is still your professional, and you have time to help pull the little Wang next to you~"

04

Mutual benefit and reciprocity are long-termism

I've been in the game industry for a long time, and occasionally I feel that the relationship between different identities in this industry is a bit too cold.

It is said that self-development and spontaneity are the way out, so distribution and R&D often hate each other; channels and game companies are even more open and secretly torn apart; Investment? Don't be funny, how many investors are still watching the game seriously?

But in this era of unprecedented difficulty, unprecedented chaos, and unprecedented integration, everyone has shortcomings and limitations in everything. Perhaps it's time to get closer to the original essence of business: the exchange of value for mutual benefit.

A foreign employee recalled that a Tencent executive once said to everyone: "The most important thing is trust." To earn trust, we need to be honest, transparent, and have consistent expectations and ambitions. ”

That's right, after all, trust is the premise of all business practices. But what is the premise of trust? I think it's everyone who believes in long-termism on the basis of professionalism and sincerely helps each other.

As an editor, my job is to help my team write better manuscripts. In the beginning, the work was really confusing. I have to put in more time and energy, and I have to face the typos and language problems of newbies again and again. Even if you help a colleague write a good article, you have to give them a reputation.

But it didn't take long for me to discover something different. If I were alone, I would have limited areas of focus and time. But if I can help 10 authors, there will always be someone who can catch the next hit and make a good topic. I can also satisfy my curiosity with less attention.

That's how the world works: those with a little more experience sometimes spend their energy on more projects, increasing the success rate of the entire organization. Investment, Distribution, Producer, Studio Leader, Research Mentor...... They all have different titles, but they all enjoy similar pleasures and share the long-term benefits of making the cake bigger.

And the gaming industry may have reached a similar stage. As Juno said, many members of the Venture Lab have worked in major studios and are asked to constantly develop game sequels, so they feel tired, after all, developing new games and new ways to play is the real joy of many gamers. "They may think that it is more interesting to work on multiple games at the same time and help multiple teams make successful new products with different themes and gameplay than to spend 10 years on one game or IP."

However, Stephane also said that joining Pteam is not the end of his career. You can go back to the studio at any time, refocus on a project, and enjoy the joy of working on the front lines – just like many editors still write their own manuscript from time to time.

In the same way, Tencent invests in and supports a large number of teams in this way, not because it wants to dominate the next big hit, but because it wants to improve the probability of success for each team so that it does not miss the next round of opportunities. While helping others, it is also building the foundation for its own growth in the next 10 years or even longer.

Of course, not every company can do the same thing as Tencent. But in the long run, only by keeping warm together and providing more help to horizontal and vertical stakeholders can we make the cake bigger together. This is true for an industry, a company, and a team.

To put it simply, how many gamers get opportunities because of the evaluation of colleagues or peers. For example, one of the opportunities for Game Science to obtain investment in Hero Games in the early days was that Wang Xinwen, the founder of Lilith, strongly recommended Feng Ji to Hero's CEO Daniel. After all, every time you help others, you are accumulating your own credit, which in the words of Eastern philosophy is called "hard work on the cause, and fate on the effect".

And in a larger dimension, altruism is actually self-interest, because success will always lead to more success. When the buying volume was booming, a "Qingyun Jue" supported at least dozens of intermodal platforms; According to Bloomberg, some insiders said that the success of "Black Myth: Wukong" has rekindled the interest of major manufacturers to invest in games in China...... Of course, competition is eternal, but in the long run, friendly connections are still easier for everyone to profit than to look down on each other, or even stumble each other.

The gaming industry in 2024 may get even harder. But in this era of global heat and cold, we should overcome the difficulties together. Perhaps that plain chicken soup is more applicable than ever:

"Get your partners promoted, and you'll be promoted; Let the partners make money, and you will make money. ”

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