展望2018：研究公司对中国和东南亚游戏产业的16项预测

原文作者：Lisa Hanson 译者：Megan Shieh

中国是全球最主要的手游和PC在线游戏市场。预计到2021年，中国游戏市场的总收入将从2017年的270亿美元增长到350亿美元。

其次，东南亚地区的游戏市场也在持续增长中，这一现象对当地开发商和发行商而言都是一件大好事儿。跨国公司和各国政府在该区域的投资将进一步推动这一增长。然而这个大市场中的各个国家存在文化差异，而各地区玩家的游戏和消费习惯也不尽相同，这就意味着单一的方案没有办法在各国间畅通无阻。

本次报告涵盖了包括中国、印度尼西亚、马来西亚、菲律宾、新加坡、泰国、越南和台湾（中国台北）在内的8个主要亚洲市场。

预测一：中国市场的手游收入有望超越PC游戏收入

近几年来，中国的游戏市场不断变化，而手游产业一直是该市场中增长最快的部分，我们预计在2018年，中国的手游市场份额将会超越PC游戏。根据本公司去年发布的“中国电子游戏市场分析报告”显示，直至2021年，手游业务将占中国游戏总收入的58%。

此外，中国地区的玩家总数将在2018年超过6.5亿人，其中90%属手游玩家，40%同玩手游和PC游戏。

预测二：带有竞技元素的手游和PC游戏将进一步推动电竞产业的发展

电子竞技在2018年仍将是个热门产业，这要归功于《英雄联盟》和《王者荣耀》等多款MOBA游戏接连不断的成功。我们认为PC电竞的未来增长可能来自《守望先锋》和《绝地求生：大逃杀》的电竞联赛，而去年掀起的吃鸡热潮也会在今年持续带动手游电竞的发展。

预测三：腾讯公司将继续保持市场领先地位

腾讯公司目前的游戏收入占中国PC和手游市场50%以上的份额。由于加大了对内部开发和IP授权的关注和投资，再加上其（通过自营社交APP）强有力的营销和分销策略，该公司的游戏业务取得了很好的成绩。

我们预计腾讯公司将在2018年继续坐拥“中国游戏市场领跑者”的位置，不过为了做到这点，它将不得不继续与网易公司抗衡，并想办法避免被像阿里巴巴这样的新晋对手抢占市场份额。

预测四：中国监管部门会进一步加强监管力度

众所周知，相关的规章制度一直都是中国游戏市场的重要组成部分之一，2017年也不例外。不久前，中国文化部加强了针对网络游戏的防沉迷规定，致使腾讯公司在《王者荣耀》中加入了迄今为止最为严格的防沉迷系统，以达到防止未成年人过度游戏的目的。

中国监管部门已经在2018年发布了多项公告，承诺要大力整治本国游戏市场并确保所有在线游戏公司遵守相关法规。

预测五：从PC移植到移动设备上的游戏将继续取得成功

“将PC游戏移植到移动设备上”是2017年的主要趋势之一。2016年间，iOS手游营收榜上的前10中有6款改编自PC游戏，而在2017年，这个数字从6上升到了7。因此我们预计，今年会有更多同类游戏获得成功。

plants vs zombies(from gamedev)

预测六：“吃鸡”品类会晋升成为主流之一

《绝地求生：大逃杀》无疑是2017的年度热门话题，这款游戏的成功带动了“吃鸡类游戏”市场。《绝地求生》的全球销量突破了3000万份，其中约有1000万份出售给了中国用户，而中国玩家对《绝地求生》的疯狂热爱也致使该国的应用商店中充斥着各式各样的“吃鸡游戏”。

腾讯公司抢占了《绝地求生》在中国的独家代理运营权，并宣布会有两款同类手游与PC版同时发布。此前腾讯已经推出了一款自开发的“吃鸡手游”，不过网易抢先一步在全球范围内发行了《荒野行动》。我们预计，2018年将会有更多的“吃鸡游戏”在中国上市，而围绕“吃鸡手游”的一场“市场份额大战”也会随之展开。

预测七：中国游戏在海外市场的表现会有所提升

由于游戏类型、故事、UI和语言等因素，中国制造的游戏在国内表现一般比海外更好。但是，包括游族（Youzu）和智明星通（ELEX）在内的一些中国公司早前已经将目光瞄准海外市场，致使多款中国游戏在东南亚、日本、韩国、欧洲和美国荣登排行榜榜首。

越来越多的中国公司选择与海外企业合作，意图在中国境外大展宏图，因此我们推测2018年将会有越来越多的中国游戏在海外市场取得成功。

预测八：VR开发者将继续尝试，AR更被看好

近几年来，VR技术一直是个热门话题，但是VR游戏产业在硬件和软件方面都仍然有些碎片化。我们预计今年会有新的VR一体头显和更高规格、更低价格的VR硬件上市。

随着2016年《Pokemon Go》的推出，AR技术闯入了大众的视野。尽管该作并未在中国正式推出，但也有许多中国公司将这一元素加入到了自己开发的游戏当中。

随着谷歌ARCore和苹果ARKit的发布，这一趋势将持续到2018年。像网易这样的中国大公司已经开始着手开发AR相关的游戏和硬件了，我们将在今年看到VR和AR领域的进一步发展。

预测九：在中国，正在增长的付费游戏市场可能面临风险

付费游戏在中国一直是个小众市场，但得益于Steam和腾讯WeGame等分销平台，付费游戏在2016和2017年间呈持续增长状态。上述两个分销平台都支持中文语言、分区定价和本地支付功能，《守望先锋》和《绝地求生：大逃杀》等超级热门游戏在中国上市，带动了付费游戏领域的强劲增长，而Steam在中国的用户基数也比去年增长了一倍多。

2018年，我们将在中国市场上看到更多款付费游戏，尤其是独立游戏。但同时我们也为类Steam的平台感到担忧，因为加强监管也意味着相关政府部门可能会随时停止这类平台在中国的营运。

预测十：泛娱乐IP的重要性会持续上升

（游戏邦注：泛娱乐，指的是基于互联网与移动互联网的多领域共生，打造明星IP的粉丝经济，其核心是IP，可以是一个故事、一个角色或者其他任何大量用户喜爱的事物。这一概念最早由腾讯集团副总裁程武于2011年提出。）

在过去几年中，“泛娱乐”一直是个不断增长的趋势。现在我们时常看到电子游戏与电视节目、电影、书籍、漫画等其他媒介捆绑到一起，网易于2016年推出的《阴阳师》就是一个很好的例子，由此我们推断，这一趋势会持续到2018年。

预测十一：H5小游戏将为移动游戏领域引入更多休闲玩家

HTML5游戏的受欢迎程度日益增长，与此同时，它们也不断将喜欢在电脑上玩网页游戏的休闲玩家吸引到移动游戏领域。在中国，腾讯是这一趋势的领头羊，该公司的“微信小游戏”项目已经看到了成功的迹象。（游戏邦注：HTML5小游戏无需下载，用户可以直接点开来玩。）

预测十二：电竞行业会出现一波招聘热潮

随着中国游戏产业的持续增长，对人才和专业人员的需求也在不断提升。我们认为中国游戏产业对电竞玩家、VR开发人员、调研和研发人员的需求将会高涨。

腾讯公司近期发布的一份报告指出，目前中国有5万人在从事电竞领域的工作，但该行业还可以再容纳21万从业人员，此外我们预计，电竞产业对非传统游戏角色（比如直播主持人和电竞管理人员）的需求也会上升。

预测十三：在线和手机支付交易将会激增

随着东南亚国家科技的飞速发展，2018年，金融科技也将在该地区实现腾飞。我们将会看到越来越多的亚洲玩家通过在线/手机支付来购买游戏和游戏内物品。

预测十四：东南亚市场将会成为主要投资目标之一

考虑到Sea, Ltd.和新加坡公司Razer（雷蛇）在2017年的高调上市，2018年将会有大量风险资本和投资资金涌入东南亚市场，因为有许多国际企业都在寻求东南亚地区的下一个游戏和科技产业巨星。

预测十五：电竞/游戏周边产品销量会激增

游戏电脑和周边硬件的销量将会持续高速增长，电竞赛事的赞助资金将达到前所未有的高度，由此可见，2018年在东南亚地区会涌现出更多电竞赛事、电竞场馆和网咖。

此外，今年的奖金额度也将创下东南亚新纪录。东南亚地区的游戏市场正如火如荼，而那些处于游戏边缘的公司也将从中受益，这一切都有助于推动整个游戏市场的发展。

预测十六：得益于新主机的发布，亚洲地区的主机销量将出现增长

在很长的一段时间里，游戏主机在东南亚地区的普及率一直都不是很高。然而，索尼在2013年推出的Play Station 4推动了马来西亚、韩国等主机市场的增长。

任天堂Switch的便携性和社交性使其在东南亚的玩家群体中颇受欢迎，随着这款主机在东南亚上市，该区域的主机市场将有望实现强劲增长。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

In celebration of 16 years of delivering market intelligence on the Chinese and Greater Southeast Asian digital games industry, we’ve put together 16 predictions about the 2018 digital games industry in the eight markets we cover: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan (Chinese Taipei).

China is the single most important market in the world for PC online and mobile games. We expect China’s games market to grow from $27 billion in 2017 to $35 billion in domestic revenue by 2021. Niko Partners has tracked this market since 2001, with our first report on China published in 2003. We predicted that the market had huge promise – our first prediction 16 years ago has certainly remained true each year.

Greater Southeast Asia’s games market is booming, representing a lucrative opportunity for developers and publishers. Investment in the region by multinational companies and country governments will continue to boost this growth. The region represents a giant opportunity however each country’s different culture, gamer preferences, and spending behavior means there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the region.

Our predictions for 2018:

1. China’s mobile games revenue will exceed PC games revenue

China’s games market is constantly changing. Mobile games, which has been the fastest growing segment in China for some time, is now projected to overtake PC online games revenue in 2018. Further, by 2021 the segment will account for 58 percent of total games revenue according to our 2017 China Digital Games Market Report. We expect the total number of gamers to exceed 650 million in China with 90 percent playing on mobile devices and 40 percent playing on both mobile and PC.

2. Esports to get a boost from competitive PC and Mobile titles

Esports will continue to be a hot industry in 2018 thanks to the ongoing success of popular competitive MOBA titles such as League of Legends on PC and Honor of Kings (which Tencent brought to the West as Arena of Valor) on mobile. We expect growth in PC esports to come from the newly launched Overwatch League as well as esports tournaments for battle royale games such as Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. We also expect battle royale games to drive esports growth on mobile. NetEase already held an esports tournament for its mobile battle royal game in 2017 with prize money of RMB 500,000.

3. Tencent to remain the market leader despite heavy competition

Tencent is currently the market leader in China with over 50 percent market share of PC and mobile games revenue. The company has done well thanks to its increased focus and investment in internally developed and licensed IP that it has paired with a robust marketing and distribution strategy via its popular social networking apps. Tencent will continue to be the market leader in 2018 but will have to fend off companies like NetEase as well as new entrants such as Alibaba, who are looking to take a slice of the pie.

4. Regulations will continue to dictate the market

Regulations have been a huge part of the China games market since its inception, and 2017 was no different. China’s Ministry of Culture enhanced anti-addiction regulations and this led to Tencent self-regulating its hit mobile game, Honor of Kings, by restricting the amount of time that minors could play. 2018 has already seen announcements from various regulatory bodies promising to tighten regulations and ensure all online game companies comply with the rules.

5. PC to mobile game adaptations will continue to succeed

A major trend we noted in 2017 was the success of PC to mobile game adaptations. This is when a PC game is relaunched as a mobile game. In 2016, we noted that there were six games in the top 10 iOS grossing chart that were classified as PC to mobile game adaptations and in 2017 this number increased to seven. We expect these types of games to do even better in 2018 driven by the continued success of legacy titles and the launch of new PC to Mobile game adaptations.

6. Battle royale secures its place as the new hit genre

PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG) was the hot topic of 2017. The game popularized the battle royal genre and sold 30 million copies worldwide, including 10 million from China alone. Battle royal games usually drop 100 players into a map with the aim to be eliminate all other players to be the last one standing. The game has inspired a number of Chinese companies, including the likes of Tencent and NetEase, to jump on the trend. Tencent has acquired the rights to launch PUBG in China and will launch two mobile games alongside the PC game. Tencent has also published its own internally developed battle royal game on mobile. NetEase however was able to beat Tencent to the market with its global release of Rules of Survival, a mobile battle royal game. We expect to see more battle royal games launch in 2018 and no doubt they will engage in a battle royal of their own to see which game comes out on top.

7. Chinese games will perform better overseas

Chinese developed games have traditionally done better at home due to the genre, story, UI and language. A number of Chinese companies, including Youzu (Legacy of Discord) and ELEX (Clash of Kings), have started to develop games with a global audience in mind and this has led to multiple Chinese games reaching the top of the charts in Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, Europe and the US. We expect 2018 to be a strong year for game exports as Chinese companies work with International partners to grow outside China.

8. VR developers experiment, AR gains traction

Virtual reality has been a hot topic for some time, but outside of low-priced mobile headsets, the market has not evolved to truly adopt VR as a mainstream gaming platform. The VR games industry is still relatively fragmented across hardware and software. 2018 will see the release of new standalone VR hardware alongside higher end VR hardware at a lower price. Augmented reality became a popular topic with the launch of Pokémon Go in 2016. While Pokemon Go was not officially launched in China, a number of Chinese companies did embrace elements from the game in their own titles. With the release of Google’s ARCore and Apple’s ARKit, we expect this trend to continue into 2018. Companies like NetEase have already committed to AR games and hardware. We expect to see more unified ecosystems across VR and AR this year.

9. Buy-to-play games market may face risks despite growth

Buy-to-play refers to video games that require the user to pay upfront, as opposed to free-to-play games that require no payment to start playing. We previously called “buy-to-play” games “standalone” games. The buy-to-play games market, has always remained niche in China but 2016 and 2017 have been strong years of growth thanks to distribution platforms such as Steam and Tencent WeGame. Both platforms support local payment, regional pricing and Chinese language support. This, alongside the launch of huge titles such as Overwatch and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has led to strong growth in the buy-to-play category and Steam has seen its user base in China more than double in the past year. We expect to see more games, especially indie titles, going the buy-to-play route in China but we do express caution for platforms such as Steam which could be disrupted in the future if regulations were to force it to shut down.
10. Pan-entertainment IP continues to grow in importance

Pan-entertainment has been a growing trend over the past few years and we expect this trend to continue through into 2018. Games are now having tie-ins with TV shows, movies, books, comics and more. NetEase for example has been keen to expand its hit Onmyouji IP that launched as a mobile game in 2016. Alongside the original game, there is now a MOBA spinoff, a comic book collection and a potential movie in the works. At the same time, books, movies and online dramas are inspiring game spin offs themselves. Tencent’s China Literature division, which was spun off in an IPO at the end of last year, plans to bring popular literature to other forms of entertainment such as games.

11. HTML5 minigames bring in more casual gamers

HTML5 games are set to increase in popularity this year as they attract a large casual gamer audience that traditionally used to play web games on their PCs. Tencent is one of the companies at the forefront of this growth and its WeChat minigames program is already seeing signs of success. Minigames are HTML5 based games that do not require a download to play — players can select any game and start playing instantly.

12. A boom in esports industry hiring

As the games industry continues to grow in China, so does the demand for talent and industry professionals. We expect demand to be especially strong for esports players, VR developers, and research and development staff. A recent report from Tencent noted that there were 50,000 people working in esports but the potential of the industry could support another 210,000. We expect to see an uptick in demand for jobs in non-traditional game roles such as live streaming anchors and esports management staff.

13.Online and mobile payments are going to surge

As Southeast Asians continue to adopt technology at a blistering pace, we will see 2018 become the year that financial tech takes off in the region. We will see more technologies and companies that allow players to pay for games and in-game items enter the market more than ever before as banks and startups around the region try to capitalize off the growing popularity and size of the gaming market in Southeast Asia.

14. The investment spotlight will shine on Southeast Asia in 2018

Given the high-profile IPOs of both Sea, Ltd. and Razer of Singapore in 2017, 2018 will see an influx of venture capital and investment money into Southeast Asia as companies seek to find the next Southeast Asian unicorn in the gaming and tech industry.

15. The esports and gaming support ecosystem will continue to beat the market

The ecosystem that supports the explosion of online gaming will continue to outperform the market in general. Growth in the sales of gaming PCs and gaming peripherals will continue to shine in a weak PC market, money will flow into event and team sponsorship at a rate higher than ever before, new events will be hosted, new arenas will continue to open, I-cafes will flourish, and 2018 will see prize money available set new records for Southeast Asia. The gaming market in Southeast Asia is on fire and those companies peripheral to the market, but that help make it tick, will benefit.

16. Consoles will grow in Asia thanks to new models

The console market in Southeast Asia has remained niche for a while. However, the launch of Sony’s PlayStation 4 in 2013 has driven growth in markets such as Malaysia and South Korea. Traditional Chinese localisation, local distribution and regional pricing has been key to console adoption in the region. Nintendo has launched its new console in Asia and is committed to following a similar strategy to Sony. The portability and social nature of the Nintendo Switch console lends itself well to gamers in Southeast Asia and we believe the console market will experience a strong year of growth as a result of the launch. (Source: nikopartners.com）