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Digi-Capital总经理分析全球电子游戏市场发展趋势

发布时间:2011-02-24 02:39:33 Tags:,,,,

投资银行Digi-Capital日前公布了一份《2011年全球电子游戏投资情况》的报告,Digi-Capital的总经理Tim Merel在最近的采访中,向媒体介绍了这份报告的相关分析内容。

从电子游戏产业的投资角度来看,这一行业会出现哪些发展趋势?

我们这份报告有提到,2010年的电子游戏行业正在加速发展,并发生了根本性质的改变。

排在前十名的投资项目占据了2010年全球游戏行业总投资的60%,其中有相当大的比例流向了在线及手机游戏投资领域。

但由于一般风险投资市场的脆弱性,以及对复杂但发展迅速的在线/手机游戏行业的了解有限,这一领域的一般风险投资仍然面临不少挑战。

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主流掌机游戏发行商还是难以适应在线/手机游戏时代,他们关注的不是新游戏,而是原有的大型掌机游戏作品——掌机游戏市场已经开始缩水,利润率也在下滑。这个领域面临挑战的原因在于,主流发行商的核心竞争力在于运营投资成本为2000万美元以上的游戏作品,这种项目风险高、开发过程复杂,但他们比较擅长这类游戏的发行和商业化运营。

而在线/手机游戏需要的是快速、大量、小规模开发平台的资金投入,明显与主流发行商的运营文化理念截然不同,所以他们不会向在线/手机游戏领域大量投入资金。另外,主流发行商认为在线/手机游戏行业仍处于初级发展阶段,这个市场过于分散,未来的主导力量尚不明确。

高质量的投资仍然是供不应求,高质量和高增长的在线/手机游戏公司(游戏邦注:它们营收年增长率达100%,营业毛利达20%至50%)正寻求投资机会以加快发展步伐。

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尽管这一领域出现了不少主流发行商/传媒企业的合并现象(游戏邦注:EA以4亿美元收购Playfish、迪士尼以7.63亿美元收购Playdom、DeNA以4亿美元收购Ngmoco、腾讯以3.5亿至4亿美元收购Riot、盛大以8000万美元收购Mochi Media),但在线/手机游戏公司依旧难以找到高质量的投资者。

你们认为中国将取代美国成为全球游戏市场的主导力量?

没错,我们相信数据最有说服力。因为在线/手机游戏的发展,整个电子游戏市场规模将达到870亿美元,在线/手机游戏的营收将占50%,达到440亿美元(2009至2014的年复合增长率为18%),而一贯居于领先地位的掌机游戏领域将走下坡路。

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亚太和欧洲地区的在线/手机游戏营收比例将达90%(预计在2014年,中国将占49%,欧洲占17%,日本占14%,韩国占11%),但北美市场仍将保持重要地位。

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中国市场已形成了用户规模庞大(游戏邦注:腾讯游戏在高峰期的同步用户达到2000万人,几乎与整个澳大利亚人口相当)、每户平均收益低、成本效益明显的在线/手机游戏产业,营业毛利高达50%,拥有向海外市场投资的强大实力。

在去年的上海世博会和GDC中国专场上,还有今年的CCTV采访中,中国游戏公司的专注和执著精神让我印象深刻。他们的运营策略兼具分析性和商业性,他们清楚如何通过大规模的用户提高收益,增加利润,他们并不满足于现状。

我所认识的中国游戏公司几乎都在寻找两种投资渠道:向可以帮助他们进军国际市场的海外公司投资,或者引进海外游戏作品和知识产权,扩展在国内的运营业务。

所以我们认为,中国公司将成为2011年的主流游戏运营商,将与海外在线/手机游戏公司进行投资、收购和授权等项目合作。腾讯2月份收购Riot Games的这一动作或许将成为这种现象大量涌现的前兆。

那么这个市场上的在线/手机游戏独立公司应该采取什么行动呢?

我们认为,在线/手机游戏独立公司在2011年只有投资获得发展或者退出市场这两种选择。

在线/手机游戏是一个发展迅猛,但地位暂时还不稳固的行业(游戏邦注:这一市场在2009年的营收是190亿美元,占全球电子游戏市场的32%;预计2014年营收将达440亿美元,占全球电子游戏市场的50%)。目前,这个领域的休闲在线独立用户超过了2亿人,在线社交游戏的月活跃用户超过7亿人,大型多人在线游戏的订阅用户突破2000万人,iPhone应用的下载量也突破了100亿次(其中55%是手机游戏)。

这一市场的准入门槛仍然会比较低,尽管竞争激烈但仅有少数主要竞争者;而营收增长率达到100%,营业毛利高达50%的强大独立游戏公司,仍然有望与更多元老级游戏公司一决高下。

电子游戏投资和企业并购行为正在加速发展,2010年这一行业的融资比2009年增长了52%,企业并购行为也比2009年增加了60%。因为投资或收购行为,在线/手机游戏公司的估值正不断增长,这一领域的主要投资或收购交易引起了高度关注。

主流收购者希望通过外部投资、收购、合资企业和战略性合作伙伴关系,实现在线/手机游戏业务的多元化发展,除此之外,亚洲的强劲竞争对手(如中国、日本和韩国公司)也正积极寻找向海外进军机会,并希望引进国际游戏作品,增加在本土市场的竞争优势。

但这个市场的发展机遇不会长存,已上市的公司将面临分析师对其高额投资及收购的严格审查。并不是目前的所有在线/手机游戏领域的投资、收购行为都会在2011年结出硕果,甚至还有可能对公司的估值产生消极影响。

所以现在就应该采取行动,可以是在企业合并前进行融资,成立合资企业,通过建立战略合作伙伴关系打入主要的海外市场(尤其是进军中国、日本、韩国,或者从这三国走向海外),也可以通过强大的企业收购市场和估值获得生存优势。

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是否认为掌机游戏开发商是濒于灭绝的恐龙?

不是,但我们认为主流掌机游戏开发商必须进化才能生存下来。

掌机游戏投资也正在发展,平均每款游戏开发成本大为增长(游戏邦注:Xbox 360和PS3游戏的开发成本是1500万至3000万美元,Wii游戏是500万至700万美元)。强劲有力的开发项目管理十分关键,而市场营销成本也有可能与开发成本持平,甚至超越后者。

这类游戏的零售、分销和硬件提成费将占零售营业额的30%至40%,发行商必须保证游戏销量在50万至100万份左右,才有可能维持收支平衡。

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我曾经与Ben Feder(游戏邦注:Take-Two公司前CEO,已在2010年退休)于数年前在新闻集团的数码部门工作,去年《Red Dead Redemption》这款游戏发行时,我们曾在纽约碰了一次面。他认为掌机游戏领域就是一个仅容许少数游戏一枝独秀的市场。

不过值得一提的是,视频游戏的实力堪比好莱坞电影,2009年全球视频游戏的营收是770亿美元(其中硬件产品占220亿美元,软件产品占550亿美元),而同一时期全球电影票房总收入是850亿美元。虽然掌机游戏领域去年营收已经缩水,但从每款游戏售价60美元,每张电影票或DVD仅售10至20美元的对比中可以看出,视频游戏仍然是极具吸金能力的产业。

我们认为掌机游戏今年营收会开始下滑,但在2014年2016年推出新一代掌机硬件时,掌机游戏营收有望实现发展,因为硬件设备的发展往往会推动游戏行业的前进。

我们还有一个看法是,因为主流掌机游戏发行商总是关注少数游戏作品,他们的市场营销预算也不断增加,所以只有综合性大企业才能获得最佳转型机会。在他们向在线/手机游戏领域进行投资或收购的同时,纯掌机游戏发行商必须证明他们也可以通过重新定位,持续创造利润。

那些拥有多个营收渠道的综合性大企业将更容易通过向在线/手机游戏领域投资,获得更大的发展空间。比如迪士尼收购Playdom和Tapulous,进军社交及智能手机游戏领域,并宣布削减对传统掌机项目的投入。

除此之外,微软也通过开发和发布Kinect,刺激了Xbox 360(游戏邦注:该产品2010年销售额比2009年增加了42%)以及相关游戏软件的销量。微软与诺基亚在2月份的联姻,也更凸显微软拓展智能手机及手机游戏业务的决心,这些都是不容忽视的现象,可以将它们视为传统游戏公司的一种绝地反击。

是不是可以说,你相信2011年将迎来电子游戏行业的重要投资机会?

电子游戏市场会根据不同领域的情况发生变化(游戏邦注:这里的领域包括休闲/社交在线游戏、中间件游戏、智能手机/平板电脑游戏、网页MMO游戏、在线技巧性游戏、纯掌机游戏、零售型的MMO游戏、博彩类游戏)。

因为它的快速发展和高利润的运营模式,在线/手机游戏的发展会分化整个游戏市场,我们认为现在就是投资者向强大的在线/手机游戏独立公司出手的重要机会。

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中国的腾讯、盛大和巨人网络已经向一些游戏基金会投资了,我们自己也正准备通过欲向海外进军的中国公司,以及打算开拓中国市场的国际公司找到更多的发展机会。另外,我们也已经看出这一行的企业和投资者拥有不少明显的投资、并购、合资企业、战略合作伙伴关系等机会。

我将参加3月份的GDC旧金山专场,到时候应该会见到更多已达成这类交易,以及正与欧洲、北美和亚洲企业恰谈合作关系的公司。总之,我们很看好今年的发展前景。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Global Video Games Investment: China, Online, Mobile Ascendent

[Digi-Capital, an investment bank focused on high growth digital companies, has just published its 2011 Global Video Games Investment Review (available at www.digi-capital.com). Its managing director, Tim Merel, has provided us with an overview of this new research in the form of a Q&A, giving a picture of the current and future state of the global games market.]

From a video games investment perspective, what trends do you see?

As we anticipated in our 2010 Review, video games activity accelerated and changed fundamentally during 2010.

Venture capital games investment approached 2007 levels in 2010 in terms of funds raised, although the number of investments declined.

The top 10 investments accounted for approximately 60 percent of total games investment in 2010, with a fundamental shift to online/mobile games company investments.

However general VC market weakness and limited knowledge and relationships across complex, fast moving online/mobile games sectors still make generalist VC games investment challenging.

Major console publishers continue to struggle to adapt to online/mobile, with a focus on existing large console games franchises rather than new intellectual property — as the console games market is flat to down, with declining profitability. The reason for this challenge is that major publishers’ core competencies focus on management of $20m+ serial, high risk, complex developments, launches and commercialization.

Online/mobile games require rapid, multiple, small scale parallel development platform investments, completely different to major publishers’ business cultures, so they are not driving online/mobile games investment. Similarly, major publishers are wary of large scale online/mobile video games M&A in early stage, fragmented markets where market dominance is not yet clear.

Quality investment demand still exceeds supply, with high quality, high growth (100 percent annual revenue growth, 20 to 50 percent operating margin) online/mobile games companies seeking investment to accelerate growth.

Outside the major investment deals, online/mobile games companies still find it challenging to find high quality investors despite major publisher/media consolidation (Electronic Arts/Playfish $400M, Disney/Playdom $763M, DeNA/Ngmoco $400M, Tencent/Riot estimated $350M-$400M, Shanda/Mochi Media $80M).

You believe China, not America, could dominate the global games market?

Yes, and we believe the data backs us up. Online/mobile games should grow total video games market size to $87B and take 50 percent revenue share at $44B (18 percent CAGR 2009-2014F), with the historically strong pure console sector flat to down.

Asia Pacific and Europe should take 90 percent revenue share for online/mobile games (China 49 percent, Europe 17 percent, Japan 14 percent, South Korea 11 percent in 2014F), although North America remains important.

China’s domestic strength has produced high volume (companies like Tencent deliver up to 20M peak concurrent users — a population the size of Australia at one time), low Average Revenue per User, cost efficient online/mobile games businesses with up to 50 percent operating margins, enabling significant investment in foreign markets.

Speaking at the Shanghai World Expo and GDC China last year, and interviewed by CCTV this year, I was struck by the singleminded focus and drive of the Chinese games companies I met. Their approach is analytically driven and commercially balanced; they understand how to make substantial profits while growing revenue at scale, and they are hungry for more.

Almost every Chinese games company I know is looking for two types of investment: foreign companies they can use as a business platform to leverage their domestic strength internationally, and foreign intellectual property and knowledge they can leverage in their domestic market.

At the banquet in honour of Vice Premier Li Keqiang in London in January, I was fascinated when he voiced sentiments that I heard many times last year. Chinese companies are excellent at execution, but they would like to move further ahead in global terms when it comes to innovation. Similarly, the 12th five year plan provides a stronger drive and support for Chinese games companies to increasingly globalize.

So we expect to see Chinese companies as major games consolidators in 2011, investing in, acquiring, partnering and licensing from the strongest international online/mobile games companies. The Tencent/Riot Games acquisition announced in February (est. $350M -$400M) is a portent of more to come.

So what should online/mobile games independents be doing in this market?

We believe online/mobile independents should invest for growth or exit in 2011.

Online/mobile games are high growth, but unconsolidated (2009 $19B revenue = 32 percent of global video games revenue, 2014F $44B revenue = 50 percent of global video games revenue), with >200M casual online unique users, >700M social online monthly active users, >20M Massively Multiplayer Online (“MMO”) subscribers and >10B iPhone apps (55 percent games) downloaded.

Barriers to entry remain low (outside of Facebook social games), with strong competition but limited market dominance by major competitors. Independents are competing successfully with more established competitors, with high revenue growth (100 percent+) and operating margins (50 percent+) being delivered by the strongest independents .

Video games investment and M&A are accelerating, with fundraising 52 percent higher in 2010 than 2009, and M&A 60 percent higher in 2010 than 2009. Online/mobile games valuations for both investment and M&A have been rising, with major deals attracting significant interest.

Major corporate acquirers are increasingly looking to external investments, acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic partnerships for online/mobile games growth and diversification, and as discussed the strong Asian players (from China, Japan and South Korea) are actively seeking foreign opportunities to leverage their capabilities internationally, as well as to source international IP and knowledge for large domestic markets.

But the opportunity will not last forever, as public companies are subject to intense analyst scrutiny of high valuation investments and acquisitions. Not all current online/mobile games investments and M&A are likely to deliver as expected during 2011, with a potentially negative impact on valuations.

So the time to act is now, either raising funds to accelerate growth prior to consolidation, building joint ventures and strategic partnerships to enter major foreign markets (particularly from and to China, Japan and South Korea), or exiting to take advantage of the strong M&A market and valuations.

Do you think that console publishers are dinosaurs?

No, but we believe that major console publishers must evolve to survive.

Console game investment is accelerating, as average game development costs have grown (Xbox 360, PS3: $15-30m, Wii: $5-7M). Strong development project management is crucial, and marketing costs can equal development costs or more.

With retail, distribution and hardware royalties significant at 30-40 percent of retail turnover, console publishers must generally sell 500,000 to 1 million units just to break even (ex-overheads).

I used to work with Ben Feder (retired as CEO of Take-Two in 2010) on the digital side of NewsCorp in the US years ago, and when we caught up in New York last year he had just “sucked the oxygen out of the room” with the launch of Red Dead Redemption.

What I understood him to mean was that the console market today is a true blockbuster market, where the marketing scale around major launches leaves space for just one major product at a time.

Given the Q4/Christmas sales bias in the console games market, that really restricts commercial opportunity even before you take into account the online/mobile games shift amongst consumers.

However it is worth remembering that video games rival Hollywood, with a total of $77B video games (hardware $22B, software $55B) vs $85B film global revenue in 2009. So even though the console sector contracted last year, at up to $60 per game sold vs $10-20 per cinema ticket/DVD, it is easy to see that it remains a cash generative business.

We believe console games will remain flat to down this year, with growth hoped for from the next console hardware cycle in 2014 to 2016 (if it happens). Historically hardware cycles have driven the industry.

Our view is that conglomerates have the best chance to adapt, as major console publisher strategies appear to have converged on fewer franchises, refreshed more often with higher marketing budgets. While adapting to meet fundamental changes in the market with online/mobile organic investment and acquisitions, pureplay console publishers must prove that their repositioning can deliver sustainable profits.

We feel that conglomerates with diversified revenue streams may find it easier to invest in the change to online/mobile games. For example, Disney invested significantly with the Playdom social games and Tapulous smartphone games acquisitions in 2010, as well as indicating an apparent intention to invest less in console games.

It is also impossible to ignore Microsoft’s investment in developing and launching Kinect (8M sold in first two months), revitalizing the sales and market share of Xbox 360 (sales up 42 percent in 2010 over 2009) and related games software. The Microsoft/Nokia announcement in February reinforces Microsoft’s commitment to high growth markets such as smartphones and therefore mobile games, and they aren’t to be underestimated.

So it would be fair to say that you believe there is significant opportunity to invest in 2011?

The video games market is changing across sectors (casual/social online, middleware, smartphone/tablet, browser based MMO, online skill based gaming, pure console, retail MMO, gambling).

As online/mobile games grow and fragment the games market, supported by high growth, high profit business models, we believe there is significant opportunity for online/mobile games growth capital funds to invest in the strongest independent companies.

China’s Tencent, Shanda and Giant Interactive have already invested in games funds, and we are exploring the opportunity ourselves around both Chinese games companies with international potential and international companies with Chinese potential. We also see clear investment, M&A, JV and strategic partnership opportunities for corporate and financial investors, which are covered in depth in the Review.

I’ll be at GDC in San Francisco in March, and expect to see more deal activity with the companies we are meeting there and those already in discussions across Europe, North America and Asia. We’re very excited about the prospects for this year.(source:gamasutra)


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