The annual "Oscars of Gaming" TGA has a succinct name: "The Game Awards." This simplicity seems to correspond to its peculiar aspect: the TGA usually focuses on the titles that best represent the gaming industry, emphasizing their "bellwether" nature in terms of genre and industry. The winner of Game of the Year each year represents the most cutting-edge technology and the most prominent gameplay exploration in the industry in some way - this may not satisfy all groups, after all, not all judging criteria can be implemented on the most simple "fun" and player preferences. But even if it is controversial, the TGA reflects the face of the entire industry to a certain extent.
In 2 days, this year's TGA will hold a lively awards ceremony. Several of the games competing for the grand prize this year are quite good, and there is even no shortage of surprises. Take the Best Game nomination as an example: "Super Mario Bros. Surprise" and "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" represent Nintendo's hard power, and "Resident Evil 4" is a remake, but it is backed by a generation of classics, and it is difficult to find fault with the production. "Marvel's Spider-Man 2" has a stable 3A level and IP blessing from a large factory. And "Baldur's Gate 3" is completely a dark horse this year, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is "making CRPG great again". "Wake Killer 2" continues the unique narrative style of Green Meidi, imitating the structure of TV series, and is a leader in large-scale film and television games.
This year's competition for the Grand Prize is fierce.
Regardless of who the winner is, being nominated for the TGA and competing is a bit of a recognition. Of course, domestic manufacturers and gamers are also paying more and more attention to TGA. It's a very rustic sentiment – with the rapid development of the industry, we hope that domestic manufacturers can show their strength on the international stage, and given that most of the podiums that can be on this kind of podium are desktop games and console games, we do expect the domestic game industry to develop in this area.
In fact, we can already see nominations for domestic games appear on the list, and this year "PUBG Mobile", "Honkai: Star Railway", "Genshin Impact" and "Beast Party" have been nominated for multiple awards. Although they are still missing the most important award of the TGA "Game of the Year" for the time being, their appearance in the list is already a relatively obvious progress in the domestic game industry.
At the same time, after the announcement of the nominees, we also noticed that in addition to the products developed by Chinese manufacturers, domestic manufacturers are also influencing the industry pattern behind the scenes through investment, which has become a new annotation for TGA.
For example, perhaps not so many people know that the two games that TGA has tied for the most nominations this year, and both are in contention for the Game of the Year award, Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 and Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake 2, are both related to Tencent. Tencent is a shareholder in Larian Studios, holding more than 30% of its sharesAs for Green Medi, Tencent also holds more than 5% of the shares.
The company behind the TGA nomination game has received a lot of attention, and the nomination became a hot topic on Weibo on the day it was announced.
This influence may not be so obvious from a player's perspective, but it is not something to be ignored in the industry - it may mean that something new is happening and that it is showing results. In fact, Tencent's overseas investment has been going on for quite some time, dating back at least to 2008, when they partnered with Riot Games. Then, focusing on gameplay, they looked for partners around the world. Some of the results of these investments can be seen in the TGA this year.
Let's start with Larian Studios.
Overseas reports once described Tencent as a "quiet investor". The collaboration with Larian Studios is a prime example of this "quietness". According to the analysis of overseas investment data**, as early as 2017, Tencent began to cooperate with Larian Studio at the capital level, but it has never been publicly mentioned. That's why many gamers are surprised to learn that Tencent is a shareholder of Larian Studios. Moreover, there is no change in the style of Larian's work – certainly not at all, and in fact, Tencent will only "advise and support Larian on strategic development when needed".
Tencent's cooperation model with established industry partners has always been "investment or acquisition without interfering with creative autonomy".
Richard Jolly, CEO of Splash Damage, a British game studio that was acquired by Tencent in 2020, once expressed his views on Tencent's investment in a foreign media interview: "I think if [this investment] gives studios and creators the ability to focus on making great games, it can bring out the real potential of the team." Another important factor to consider is that such an investment also doesn't limit these games to a specific ecosystem, which is undoubtedly a good thing for players. ”
Compared with Larian, Tencent's cooperation with Lumeidi started a little later. In May 2021, Tencent acquired Lvmeidi 38% of the shares. At the time, Green Medi had already developed titles such as Alan Wake Killer and Control, which had a fairly good reputation and a narrative style that was unique among mainstream triple-A games. In 2022, Tencent made an additional investment, and its current shareholding in Lumeidi has increased to 501%。
Film-based storytelling is LVMEDI's strength, and their partnership with Tencent has become closer in recent years.
It can be seen that over the past many years, Tencent has paid great attention to the manufacturers of such PC or console games. We often hear the argument that Tencent is strong in mobile games, and now it is vigorously acquiring overseas studios in order to fill the gap in desktop games and console games in a more efficient way.
This statement may sound plausible, but it's not particularly accurate. In a visit in May, Tencent Senior Vice President Ma Xiaoyi explained his considerations to Touch: "A lot of gameplay is going to be successful in this market (PC and console) before moving to a larger market, where we have invested in more PC and console game studios in the hope of succeeding in this market."On the other hand, I hope to have more exploration in the gameplay and help us create new categories. ”
Gameplay breakthroughs are actually not common, or in other words, it often takes a relatively long process for a gameplay to grow from birth to growth. For example, back in 2013, Tencent experienced Dayz on the ARMA engine and invested in developer Dean Hall. After that, Tencent supported the tactical shooter H1Z1, and finally partnered with Krafton in 2018 to develop PUBG Mobile, which became a global success, and the process took five years.
After the announcement of the TGA nomination, Bloomberg also published a review of Tencent's investment strategy: "[Recent market changes] remind us once again that making games is a difficult task......Tencent has shown enough patience to make the most of its investments, and has been prudent enough to play a role behind the scenes in a notoriously volatile industry for the long term. ”
Including Bloomberg, many overseas ** have also noticed Tencent's global layout of games.
Of course, this model is not the only solution. miHoYo's Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail prove that the other path is also very viable: Achieve a high level of content in the two-dimensional category that you are best at, and even combine the aesthetics and popular gameplay in the more niche category, and then promote it to the public. This is another level of leadership, and it is also a manifestation of the influence of domestic manufacturers.
The influence of domestic manufacturers in TGA is actually a process of gradual accumulation, and the gradual expansion of this influence reflects the increasing influence of domestic manufacturers in the international game market to a certain extent. In addition to awards, there are also many other collaborations. For example, the TGA award has attracted more attention in China, and the starting point may be that in 2016, Tencent cooperated with the organizer to conduct a localized live broadcastSince 2018, TGA has opened a voting channel at station BIn 2023, voting channels will be opened on WeChat and Xiaohongshu. This is also an example of the increasing influence of the Chinese game industry in the world gaming market.
There is also an interesting little story, in 2016 and 2017, there was also a small award that was not officially awarded at the party - the China Fan Choice Award, and there are many works from domestic manufacturers on the shortlist, such as "Glory of Kings", "Onmyoji", "Fantasy Journey to the West" and "Ball Ball War". The winning games of the two years are League of Legends and Sword Net 3 remakes.
The China Fan Choice Award shows the influence of the domestic game market on the international stage.
In 2019, more and more domestic manufacturers began to appear in the nominations of TGA awards. This year, Tencent's Call of Duty Mobile won the Best Mobile Game award, making it the first game developed by a Chinese manufacturer to win a formal award on the TGA. In 2020, Call of Duty Mobile again won the Best Mobile Game award, Genshin Impact was nominated for Best Mobile Game and Best RPG for the first time, and in 2021, it won the Best Mobile Game award, which also included Tencent's League of Legends and Pokémon Assemble.
In 2022, Marvel Snap, which was published globally by Chaoxi Lightyear, won the Best Mobile Game Award, while Apex Legends Mobile developed by Tencent, Tower of Fantasy published by Tencent participated in the global distribution, Genshin Impact by miHoYo, and Diablo Immortal by NetEase were also shortlisted for the nomination list.
The 2022 Best Mobile Game Award nominees are all products from Chinese manufacturers.
This year, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail were nominated for Best Operation**, while Beast Party by Sothink Technology was nominated for Best Multiplayer. PUBG Mobile was nominated for Best Esports Game, making it the first mobile game in TGA history to be nominated for this award.
Given the status of the industry vane of TGA itself, these nominations are due to the fact that China, as a huge game market, is difficult to ignore because of its own size and the voice of playersOn the other hand, the works related to domestic manufacturers are indeed constantly moving closer to more important awards, and slowly and continuously moving towards a more eye-catching place on the stage.
So now we may be able to draw a phased conclusion, in the field of games, the influence of Chinese manufacturers in the world is gradually expanding.
In a sense, before that, when we talked about the "Chinese game industry" and the "world game industry", we tended to separate the two to a certain extent - and now, the two are gradually merging and developing together. More importantly, China's resources, professional capabilities, and industry experience are promoting the development and changes of the global game industry to a certain extent, and gradually influencing and even promoting the development of the world game industry to a certain extent. And this development ultimately benefits all gamers around the world.
Attached: Works related to Chinese manufacturers in the 2023 TGA nomination list: 1) Game of the Year nominations: The developers behind Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2, Larian Studios and Green Medi, both have Tencent investment backgrounds. These two works are also the most nominated products at TGA2023, with 8 nominations each.
2) Best Esports Game Nominations: PUBG Mobile, Valorant, and League of Legends. PUBG Mobile is the first mobile game in TGA history to be nominated for the award, and Riot Games, the studio behind Valorant and League of Legends, is a wholly owned acquisition by Tencent.
3) Best Action Game Nomination: FromSoftware, the developer of Armored Core 6: Realm of Skyfire, has a Tencent investment background.
4) Nominations for Best Ongoing Game: Fortnite and Genshin Impact. Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, has a background in Tencent's investment, and Genshin Impact is produced by miHoYo.
5) Best Mobile Game Nomination: "Honkai: Star Railway" is produced by miHoYo.
6) Best Simulation Strategy Game Nominee: Paradox Interactive, the developer of Cities Skylines 2, has a background in Tencent's investment.
7) Best Family Game, Best Multiplayer Game Nomination: "Beast Party", the developer Sosi Technology also has a Tencent investment background.