It's just been a month since 2024, but for game live streaming, it seems like a year.
First of all, it revoked the acquisition of YY Live, which directly revealed the changes in the live broadcast industry in the past three years. After that, Douyin, which has not been able to obtain the live broadcast right of Honor of Kings, began to broadcast live on January 21, and the barriers of the game live broadcast platform collapsed.
Woe to you, blessing to rely on, blessing, woe to lurk. In the competition with the short ** platform, the game live broadcast platform is losing valuable traffic, and it seems that the game platform has also ushered in a new development opportunity. As a content platform, the game live streaming platform can return to the content itselfCreate highly professional and controlled content and events
Prosperity and loneliness
Before the popularization of the mobile Internet, live broadcast platforms have begun to appear, such as 9158 in 2008 to create a live show, but the live broadcast at that time was based on the PC side, and the content was mainly based on the live broadcast of the show. Subsequently, it was not until YY's independent game live broadcast business and Douyu became independent from station A that the game live broadcast entered the public eye.
Since the tiger tooth and betta fish were two big equals,The number of esports live streaming users soon reached 100 million。At this time, almost no one believes that the annual salary of the anchor will be turned upside down. In 2015, Dota 2 professional player Guo Shi Wushuang said that at that time, whether it was Dota 2 or League of Legends, the monthly salary of first-line e-sports players was about 30,000 yuan. However, the income of first-line anchors may be ten times or even dozens of times that of professional players.
With the popularization of the mobile Internet and the advent of the era of game gold, the traffic entrance of game live broadcast has begun to shift to the mobile terminal, and it has attracted the attention of a large number of users and capital. The time finally came in 2016, and the era of national live broadcast gradually came, and even once again opened the situation of the 100-broadcast war after O2O.
At that time, live broadcast was still very dependent on traffic, and capital provided financial support for various platforms to obtain traffic. On the road to gaining traffic, each method is relatively simple, either to spend money to buy traffic, or to sign influential anchors at a large price. Driven by capital, the annual salary of the head anchor has reached 100 million.
Whether it is from the level of publicity, or from the field of survival of the players,The rise of game live streaming has played a key role in the improvement of the game industry
Before the live broadcast road was opened, Chinese game professional players could already get a good salary in the era of game Jinyuan. However, the gaming profession, just like a sporting event, is a young meal, and how to maintain the living environment and quality of life after retirement is a huge challenge. Dota Pro Player 2009 has explored a replicable model for professional players by making games ** and ** stores; After 2009, Warcraft player Sky Li Xiaofeng founded Shanghai Tidu Intelligent Technology, which opened another path for professional players.
Whether it is 2009 or Sky Li Xiaofeng, the premise of success is that he is a player with a certain influence. Second, although the first mover is more challenging, it is also easier to obtain market dividends. Other players, it's hard to replicate. Therefore, live broadcast has become the first choice for many professional players after retirement.
Spending lavishly,Many live streaming platforms have fallen into a commercialization dilemma。In addition, with the rise of e-commerce live broadcast and short ** platform, the attention of capital has also begun to shift. In 2018, Panda Live, which ranked third in the game live broadcast track, was unable to make ends meet and was unable to continue, so it fell first. After that, other leading platforms also fell into their own problems.
In just a few years, the game live broadcast industry has experienced from prosperity to loneliness, and in the end, only Huya and Douyu are left.
The last ditch that couldn't land
In the years when game live streaming was booming, anchors and platforms complemented each other. The platform provides traffic, the anchor provides content, and high-quality content feeds back the platform's traffic.
With the rise of short **, traffic has obviously begun to shift。In 2020, Douyin's daily active users exceeded 600 million; In the first half of 2020, Kuaishou's average daily activity (DAUs) for apps and mini programs was 30.2 billion, with an average monthly activity of 77.6 billion; As of the end of 2020, Huya's monthly active users were 178.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 188%；By the end of 2020, Betta had an average monthly MAU of 17.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 52%。Although the number of game live broadcast users is still growing, it has become relatively weak in the face of short ** platforms.
Game streaming has a chance to make a last stand. At the end of 2020, Tencent transferred the brand management and game live broadcast rights of Penguin E-sports to Douyu for $500 million**, and then promoted the merger of Huya and Douyu to reduce business competition between the two parties and avoid excessive internal friction. However, because of anti-monopoly, the State Administration for Market Regulation banned the merger of Huya and Douyu in accordance with the law, and the game live broadcast platform missed the opportunity to make a last fight with the short ** platform.
With the stability of the game live broadcast track, whether it is for capital or platforms, there is no longer a need to provide tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of salaries for anchors, thereby reducing the cash pressure of platform companies.
Seeing the loneliness of the game live broadcast industry and the rise of the short ** platform, the flow of anchors has become the norm again. In 2019, as one of the four anchor representatives, he followed Chen Shaojie to the NASDAQ to ring the bellBaby Xuxu will jump to Douyin in 2023to become the first head game streamer to jump ship.
After Xuxu Baby jumped ship, the game live broadcast platform also has the live broadcast right of the game as a barrier, such as the glory of kings. However, at the end of 2023, accompanied by WangThe first brother of the glory live broadcast, Zhang Daxian, jumped to Douyin, already hinting at the dissipation of this barrier. Then, at the beginning of 2024, another top anchor of the king, Dream Tears, also started his Douyin live broadcast debut. Subsequently, the right of Honor of Kings to broadcast live on Douyin was officially opened, and the Honor of Kings anchor quickly occupied the huge market of Douyin live broadcast.
Nowadays, game live broadcast platforms have cultivated one anchor after another through traffic, but there is a risk of user loss due to the high user stickiness of the anchors.
Back to the essence of content
In the past few years, whether it is from the number of TV dramas or the quality of TV dramas, there has been a significant improvement, and the traffic dramas that have been complained about in the past are decreasing. The counterattack of the TV series is inseparable from the production company's return to the essence of content.
Atom in deep diving,For game live streaming platforms, returning to content may allow game live streaming to find new growth points。In addition, users of these platforms are already tired of pure live content, and need different content to improve freshness.
In 2003, Douyu anchor PDD held a "PDD Singing Club" competition, invited some anchors to link, and provided a million prizes, which successfully attracted many anchors and some professional singers, as well as many water friends to participate. The event was extremely popular, and the final night even attracted more than 0w VIPs at the same time. After that, PDD said in the live broadcast room that he planned to increase the bonus a little in the second season, at least four or five million.
In the King's Canyon, the sniper anchor Lv Dehua has become one of the many highlights of the sailors, as the anchor Lv Dehua also knows the enthusiasm of the sailors for the sniper game, so he launched the Sniper Cup, which also brought the help to Huya. Although it is not long, it also verifies the recognition of water friends for the event.
The reason why Deep Dive Atom believes that the platform can rely on content to get out of the circle is because there have been many high-quality self-built events in the game live broadcast platform. As early as 2016, Panda TV has launched 5 consecutive seasons of Pandakill, inviting anchors such as Prisoner, 2009, Shentu, and Rat King to participate, attracting widespread attention and recognition.
Whether it's LOL, Honor of Kings or Dota 2, the control of mainstream events is still in the hands of the official, which greatly enhances the influence of the event and increases the ability of the event to attract money, such as the total prize money of The International 10th Dota 2 was as high as 18.2 million US dollars.
When it comes to gaming events, each company has a different attitude, some choose the right to broadcast the event, some choose the title team, and some choose to build their own events. For example, on January 25, 2023, the Round of 16 Qualifiers for the Peace Elite PEL Resort Island Cup officially opened, and Douyu signed contracts with Shenzhen 4AM, Changsha TEC, and Chongqing PAI to participate in this competition; Almost at the same time, the S2 season of the Huya Thunder Cup Spring Open Training Tournament officially opened on January 25, and the first shot of the Glory of Kings event was launched. Despite this, these two companies did not reflect their own advantages in the event, making it difficult to get out of the circle.
In 2023, NetEase Games will enter NetEase's martial arts competitive game "Naraka: Infinite" and officially enter the Douyin live broadcast room, and the sales volume of the live broadcast room will exceed 10 million in just 45 minutes. The importance of game live streaming platforms as a channel is being weakened by short ** platforms, and there must be a response.
Mainstream games have a lot of influence, but they also have risks. That is the profitability of the team that spends a lot of money, and if it can't get results, the team will face huge financial problems, which may be a breakthrough for the game live streaming platform. While a wide variety of events have proven the viability of sporting events, it seems that game live streaming platforms are also laying out contentPerhapsYesConcerns about the profitability of the event, perhaps due to other considerations, do not seem to be very determined
Even if it is a short ** platform, the demand for content is also strong, and it is constantly looking for high-quality content to meet the needs of users. At present, the game live streaming platform still has traffic in hand, and if it is not drastically innovated, how to deal with it once the traffic is lost