🕹️The "Industrial Layer" fog of Web2 gaming

A、The fragmented industry chain: The invisible wound of efficiency loss.

The highly fragmented nature of the Web2 gaming industry has long impaired market efficiency. Taking 2023 data as an example: the number of independent game studios worldwide has surpassed 50,000, yet 90% of these studios earn less than $1 million annually. The publishing market is similarly fragmented, with 80% of the market share controlled by small and medium-sized publishers, who on average handle only 2-3 publishing projects per year, indicating extremely low efficiency. The direct consequence of this phenomenon is the increasingly harsh survival environment for development teams. Statistics show that an independent game development team typically needs to negotiate with 3-5 publishers repeatedly, a process that can last 6-8 months, and the revenue they ultimately receive often accounts for only 30%-50% of the total turnover, sometimes even less. For instance, despite "Hollow Knight" selling over 3 million copies globally, the development team's actual income was less than 35% of the total turnover.

However, companies that control the entire industry chain exhibit a starkly different vitality. Tencent, by integrating research and development, publishing, esports, and live streaming, has turned "League of Legends" into a blockbuster product with annual revenues exceeding $2 billion. NetEase, leveraging its own channels, has adopted an integrated approach from development to operation, resulting in a 23% year-on-year growth in its gaming business revenue in 2023. MiHoYo, through full-chain operations, has achieved global success expansion from the "Honkai" series to "Genshin Impact." These cases unequivocally demonstrate that the future of gaming competition is no longer just a contest of individual products but a competition of the entire industry chain's collaborative capabilities.