"Egg Boy Party".Ding Lei wealthNetEase market capitalization, NetEase, which has been stuffy and rich, finally can't hide it.
On December 8, NetEase's game "Egg Boy Party" announced that it had accumulated the number of registered usersExceeded 500 million。Since its launch in May last year, the game has taken nearly a year and a half, and has not only become NetEase's most user-used and fastest-growing game product, but also accounts for nearly 3 4 of the total number of game users in China.
In addition, "Egg Boy Party" was also announced to be open from December 15".Egg tie festival"Give back to players and invest 500 million yuan as an incentive for gamers' content ecological creation. The move is also seen as a response to the old rival Tencent's new work "Yuan Dream Star".
On December 12, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2023 Hurun Male Entrepreneurs List" for the first time, listing the top 50 Chinese male entrepreneurs in the Hurun Report, with a threshold of 64 billion yuan. Among them,NetEase founder Ding Lei ranked sixth with a wealth of 240 billion yuan, the top five are Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Sui (450 billion), Tencent main founder Ma Huateng (280 billion), Pinduoduo founder Huang Zheng (270 billion), CATL founder Zeng Yuqun (250 billion), ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming (245 billion).
December 13th**,The value of NetEase Hong Kong** was HK$542.5 billion, exceeding Meituan's market capitalization of HK$513.3 billion, becameChina is the fourth largest in terms of market capitalizationThe big internet companies, second only to Tencent, Pinduoduo and Alibaba.
As one of the earliest Chinese Internet companies, NetEase has experiencedThe highlight of the portal eraLater, it gradually quieted down in the shining mobile Internet era such as Tencent, Alibaba, Pinduoduo, ByteDance, and Meituan. Although he occasionally goes out of the circle, the last highlight moment may have to be traced back to 2003, when Ding Lei became the richest man in China.
Nowadays, a few things are one after the otherLet NetEase stand in the spotlight again, only to find out that NetEase has been making a fortune, and its label is neither an email nor a portalIt's a game
Again against Tencent Games
NetEase, which has been online for nearly a year and a half"Egg Boy Party"., which is already the only one in the domestic party game, but now Tencent is carrying"Yuan Dream Star".After the "chicken" war, NetEase and Tencent faced each other head-to-head again in the game field.
"Yuanmeng Star", which was designed by TiMi Studio, can be seen from the birth of Tencent's attention. Before the launch, Tencent held a conference in early December to warm up, announcing that the first phase would beSpecial investment of 1.4 billionMeta is used for game ecological construction.
At the same time, "Yuanmeng Star" joined hands with nine major content platforms, including Bilibili, Douyin, Douyu, Huya, Kuaishou, QQ, Weibo, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu, to launch the first season of the "Star Dream Partner" content ecological incentive plan, providing a total of 300 million incentives**;In terms of map creation, "Yuan Dream Star" will launch the first phase of the "1 Billion Dream Plan", and will set up 1 billion Dream Making** to help map creators.
In addition, "Yuan Dream Star" will also launch a combination of online and offline e-sports events, which will be launched in 2024100 million yuanto create the first "Yuanmeng Star Champion Cup" that everyone can participate in.
Tencent said that for the future of "Yuan Dream Star".Long-term investment is "not capped".
After the press conference, Zhang Daxian, the head anchor of "Glory of Kings", also created momentum for "Yuan Dream Star" in his Douyin debut, and according to statistics, this live broadcast had more than 60 million times** and the highest number of more than 2 million times**.
On the day of its launch on December 15, the opening screen ads of many mainstream apps were "Yuanmeng Star". A series of offensives must not be unstoppable.
According to Qimai data, "Yuanmeng Star" was launched in only 90 minutesClimb to the top of the iOS free listand dominated the charts for 5 days. Qimai estimates that the turnover of iOS alone has exceeded 50 million yuan, while the revenue of Android is usually estimated at twice that of iOS.
In the face of the menacing arrival of "Dream Star", on December 8, NetEase announced that the cumulative number of registered users of "Egg Boy Party" exceeded 500 million. What is the concept of this number?According to the "2023 China Game Industry Report", in 2023,The scale of game users in China is 66.8 billion people。Calculated accordingly"Egg Boy Party" users occupiedNearly 3 4
At the same time, "Egg Boy Party" also announced that it would start the "Egg Boy Festival" on December 15 to give back to players, and invest 500 million yuan as an incentive for gamers' content ecological creation.
In addition to the head-to-head confrontation,The two sides are still "fighting in secret".。It is reported that "Yuan Dream Star" has set up a character called "Yi Spotted" (general), and "Egg Boy Party" has released a new ** "Goose Heart" (disgusting heart) with courtesy. At the same time, NetEase also launched a drink called "Penguin American Bar" at the front desk of the company, and the coffee profile stated: "Just ice American, eat the penguin in one bite, and protect the best egg waffle in the world." "And the text messages of "Against the Cold" and the system notification of "Egg Boy Party" all mention the recent beware of the Internet under the guise of 'realizing dreams'.
Egg Boy Party was launched in May 2022, and according to NetEase's 2022 financial report, Egg Boy Party has become the game with the highest number of daily active users in NetEase Games' history.
In fact, party games are a relatively niche game genre, and the party games that were popular in the domestic market before were basically from overseas, although "Egg Boy Party" has been released for nearly a year and a half, it is almost a unique existence. Its real popularity will start from the Spring Festival in 2023, and it is still very popular until now.
August 2023, monthly active users of "Egg Boy Party".Exceeded 100 millionIn December, the number of registered users of "Egg Boy Party" exceeded 500 million. Nowadays, "Egg Boy Party" is at the top of the rankings of both iOS and Android games.
However, with the strong arrival of "Yuan Dream Star",Is the good day of "Egg Boy Party" coming to an end?Because a similar scenario was the "chicken" war six years ago, NetEase took the lead, but Tencent took the lead. Now, will history repeat itself again?
Zhang Shule, the industry's leading person, believes that social games need to haveTrue social engagement, party games are currently the best option. But without the disruptive innovation that surpasses "Egg Boy Party", it is difficult for "Yuan Dream Star" to surpass and cut more shares. On the surface, Tencent's social network may give "Metadream Star" a certain bonus, but only if users can really feel the difference in games like "Metadream Star" and surpass the experience of "Egg Boy Party", otherwise the social network will not be able to achieve a catalytic effect.
In Zhang Shule's view, "Yuan Dream Star" is Tencent'sA strategic fill-inOn the surface, it is to follow the trend, but in fact it is a kind of strategic containment. Just like when Tencent Weibo curbed Sina Weibo and bought time for the rise of WeChat, although the original intention was to do a good job in Weibo, it is also an effective business means to use homogeneous products to avoid the rapid growth of friends.
Li Chengdong, founder of Dolphin Society, also believes that Tencent's promotion of "Yuan Dream Star" is a defensive strategy, Tencent Games and NetEase Games themselves have a good user base, and both have good promotion channels, so it depends on whether the game product itself is good or not, if it is done well, it will be very fierce. According to the type of game, chess and card and shooting games generally have a long cycleSocial games are phased, often only two or three yearsIf the user is tired of playing, the popularity will drop quickly.
Social games have nothing to do with whether there are competing products, although competition will lead to the loss of some users, but it mainly depends on whether users are tired or not. Judging from the nearly one and a half years since "Egg Boy Party" was launched and the current user penetration rate, the high point should be over, and it may decline after another year and a half of playing. Li Chengdong said to Qingcheng Finance.
Lack of protection for minors
In fact, even without Tencent's competition, NetEase's "Egg Boy Party" is facing a very serious problem, namelyInadequate protection of minors
Recently, a number of parents of minors have reported that ", ".There are loopholes in the real-name system of Egg Boy PartyThe supervision of the "detour" login of minors is not strict, and there is a huge amount of single recharge for children, which far exceeds the limit of the single recharge amount for minors. In addition, although the game provides a channel for parents to appeal, parents still face the problem of difficulty in getting a full refund.
Up to now, the Black Cat complaint platform hasMore than 14,000 piecesComplaints about refunds for minors' top-ups.
*On the Black Cat complaint platform.
It is reported that in a contact group with hundreds of parents, there is a statistical list displayingMore than 590 people recharged more than 490 yuanThe amount of recharge mostly ranges from 2,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan
AboutThe specific performance of the "detour" loginFor: Children can log in after relying on the account that comes with the mobile phone, such as Huawei, Xiaomi account, etc., and do not need to enter additional information. Not only that, some parents said that their children remembered their ID numbers, and they could log in by entering their adult ID numbers and names when logging in to register an account. In addition, the child logs in to the game by purchasing a game account on a platform.
In addition to the "detour" login, there are also existsThe amount of a single recharge for children is hugefar exceeds the limit of a single recharge amount for minors. According to the screenshot of the recharge record provided by a parent, there are minor users who have a recharge of 648 yuan, which has obviously exceeded the prescribed amount.
In 2019,The "Notice on Preventing Minors from Becoming Addicted to Online Games" clearly requires:For users over the age of 8 but under the age of 16, the single recharge amount shall not exceed 50 yuan, and the cumulative monthly recharge amount shall not exceed 200 yuanFor users over the age of 16 but under the age of 18, the single recharge amount shall not exceed 100 yuan, and the cumulative monthly recharge amount shall not exceed 400 yuan.
In this regard, "Egg Boy Party" was officially released in November and DecemberTwo "Parent Letters"., the upgrade of the anti-addiction system is explained. "Egg Boy Party" said that it has accessed the face recognition mechanism for high-risk groups in all channels, and further launched the "one-click prohibition of recharge" and "one-click prohibition of login" measures to assist parents in supervising and preventing the situation of underage games. At the same time, "Egg Boy Party" also set up an exclusive customer service portal for underage refunds for all channels. As of December 2023, more than 30,000 refund requests related to suspected minors have been processed, with a completion rate of 98%.
However, NetEase also pointed out that in the actual process of processing, it encountered some complex cases with special circumstances, involving situations such as "adults have repeatedly substituted for AI face recognition" and "illegal rental and sale accounts".The problem of black and gray productionIt will take more time to determine whether it is a minor recharge and the amount of account refund, which will affect the processing time to a certain extent.
In fact, this is not the first time that "Egg Boy Party" has had an accident.
In September this year, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission publicly named NetEase's "Egg Boy Party", saying that it had a large number of underage recharge problems, and issued a "".Three questions for the soul
Many consumers have reported to the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission that their children are addicted to "Egg Waffle Party" during the summer vacation, and have found many problems, such as existenceIt is difficult to refund minors' consumption, anti-addiction loopholes such as "quick games" and "channel services", online begging, and a bad atmosphere of seeking adoptionWait. At the same time, because the game has a large number of underage users, there are:Criminals commit fraud on the platform
After receiving feedback from consumers, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Committee conducted a special consumer inspection, and the test found that the tourYou only need to enter your name + ID number to pass real-name authenticationAs a result, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission released a supervision article on August 23.
Since then, the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission has received the latest reply from NetEase Games:The anti-addiction system will only be triggered if minors register with their own name and ID number, which is limited in terms of game duration, game login period, and top-up amount.
In response to the doubts of the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission, NetEase said that in the process of game operation, our company will also take measures such as turning on face recognition for accounts that are highly suspected of minors, and severely crack down on and block a small number of violations that bypass the anti-addiction system, so as to effectively protect the healthy gaming of minors.
In this regard,Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Committee asked NetEase three timesFirst, the problems of online games causing minors to indulge in and recharge large amounts of money have aroused great concern in society. Most children lack self-control, and NetEase Games designs an anti-addiction systemHaven't you thought about the child going around?？Second, the parent's name and ID number are actually very easy to obtain in a family, and if the child authenticates with the parent's information with his or her real name, all constraints will be invalidIsn't the anti-addiction system just a decoration?？Third, the longer consumers play games, the more profit game companies will make, and it is likely that game companies are not profit-driven in limiting consumers' game time and recharge amounts. In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of minors, the relevant departments of the state have formulated rules for the game addiction prevention systemShouldn't it be more scientific and effective?
In recent years, the state has paid more and more attention to the online protection of minors. On August 30, 2021, the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China issued the "Notice on Further Strict Management and Effectively Preventing Minors from Becoming Addicted to Online Games", which is known as the strictest anti-addiction regulation in history.
On December 22, 2023, the National Press and Publication Administration issued the "Measures for the Administration of Online Games (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)", which is now open to the public for comments. It is mentioned thatOnline games are not allowed to set up inducing rewards such as daily login, first recharge, and continuous recharge. Online game publishing business units must not provide or condone the trading of virtual props in the form of speculation, auctions, or so forth. All online games must set user recharge limits and publicize them in their service rules, and pop-up warnings should be given to users' irrational consumption behaviors.
From January 1, 2024, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online will come into effect
In such a context and node,"Egg Boy Party" has repeatedly had problems, has NetEase really fulfilled its due responsibility?
Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Consulting, said that since "Egg Boy Party" focuses on young people and especially attracts many minors, as a platform, it must fulfill its overall responsibility as a company and must not step on the red line.
Liu Yue, a lawyer at Beijing DOCVIT Law Firm, pointed out that from the perspective of existing technology, if minors fraudulently register and use in the name of their parents, it is indeed difficult for NetEase to identify whether the user registers the game or logs in by fraudulent means without designing the use of personal privacy information for comparison, such as setting up technical methods such as face comparison or fingerprint comparison. After all, in terms of the game product type, privacy protection and technical precautions need to be balanced accordingly, and user privacy information should not be collected too much because of the possibility of fraudulent use by minors. However, from a legal point of view, NetEase should also have an obligation to strengthen certain technical controls to distinguish between minors and adults. In addition, objectively speaking, the child "detoured" to log in, and the parents have certain guardianship and management problems. But games tend to have an addictive design and at the same time are aimed at the teenage group, so in this caseGame operators should fully consider these issues and have a higher duty of care
After all, it depends on the game to survive
The problem may not be accidental, after all, NetEase is an Internet company that survives on games.
June 1997,Ding Lei, 26, founded NetEase in Guangzhou。In November of the same year,NetEase Mail was born, thus constituting the first label of NetEase.
May 1998,NetEase transformed into a portal, and Sina, Sohu have become the three major portals. In November of that year, Tencent was born.
June 2000,NetEase is listed on the NASDAQ in the United States。This year, NetEase ranked at the bottom of the portal**, and its annual revenue was 2 3 for Sohu and 1 6 for Sina. In 2001, NetEase againSuspected of financial fraudOnce faced with suspension, this year, the revenue was continued to distance itself from Sohu and Sina.
But that's itIn 2001, NetEase began to develop its game businessAt the end of 2001, it launched "Westward Journey Online", which brought a huge change to NetEase.
Year 2002In the second quarter, NetEase made a profit for the first time. In August of the same year,"Westward Journey Online II" was launched, which boosted NetEase's take-offAt the same time, in the era of mobile Internet more than 10 years later, "Journey to the West" still plays a role on the mobile phone.
In 2003, NetEase ushered in a highlight moment, the stock price climbed to $70, becoming the first stock on the NASDAQ, andDing Lei also ascended to the throne of China's richest man。This year, Tencent has just transformed its portal.
According to the statistics of Qingcheng Finance, NetEase's game business has been classified as e-commerce and other businesses, and it was first mentioned in the third quarter of 2003, with a single quarterly income$6.8 million, which accounted for the quarter's total revenue ($16.5 million).。In the fourth quarter of 2003, its gaming business revenue increased again, reaching $8.5 million, accounting for 436%。
In fact, such a proportion is the lowest in the history of NetEase. On an annual basis, from 2004 to 2022, NetEase's ** game revenue accounted for less than 70% only three times, which was 59 in 20048%。A total of 9 times reached more than 80%, which was completed in 2005-2013, and the highest was 89 in 20095%。After two years of pullback in 2017 and 2018, it has returned to more than 70% since 2019. From 2019 to 2022, the proportion of NetEase's game business revenue is as follows
*It should be noted that from the second quarter of 2022, NetEase**'s game service business has been renamed as games and related value-added services, and certain business lines related to or affiliated with games have been transferred from innovation and other businesses to games and related value-added services.
In the first three quarters of this year, the revenue of NetEase games and related value-added services accounted for respectively
*Yu Qingcheng Mapping It is worth noting that Tencent has long been recognized as the largest game company in China, but now its game business has fallen to less than 50%. In the third quarter of this year, Tencent's total revenue was 1546300 million yuan, representing 75.7 billion yuan of value-added service revenue of the game business, accounting for 49%.
It can be seen,Tencent is no longer overly reliant on games, and NetEase is really inseparable from games
In the era of mobile Internet, traditional portals are declining, and Sina and Sohu are seriously lagging behind. Tencent grabbed the mobile Internet ferry ticket early because of WeChat and continued to shine. WhileNetEase has neither started e-commerce nor further study in the field of AI, which cannot be compared with Alibaba, JD.com, and others. Although NetEase Youdao and Yun** have also been around for some years, they have always accounted for a small proportion. Compared with Pinduoduo, ByteDance, Meituan, etc., which began to shine in the mobile Internet era, NetEase is very low-key.
ButNetEase is enough just for games
On December 12, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2023 Hurun Male Entrepreneur List" for the first time, and Ding Lei, the founder of NetEase, ranked sixth with a wealth of 240 billion yuan. On December 13**, the value of NetEase Hong Kong** was HK$542.5 billion, surpassing Meituan's market capitalization of HK$513.3 billion, making it the fourth-largest Internet company in China by market capitalization, behind Tencent, Pinduoduo and Alibaba.
In this regard, Li Chengdong believes that on the one hand, NetEase's stock price itself is rising, but the main reason is that Meituan, JD.com, etc. have lost too much, so it is normal for NetEase to rank fourth in market capitalization.
As for the reliance on the game business, Li Chengdong said that it is not a big problem for NetEase, he pointed out that games are global, and there are not many countries in the world with policy restrictions, thereforeGoing overseas is not only NetEase, but also the focus of the entire domestic game company in the future
In any case, NetEase has to solve the domestic problem first, or talk about going to sea.
Zhang Shule believes that NetEase's too single model will be challenged by miHoYo. The success of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" is an opportunity for miHoYo to advance again. Although it has not yet reached the mythical status of "Genshin Impact", it is also the third truly double-hit game company in the industry.
In the future, how much money will NetEase still have to make in his hair?
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