The Influence And Cause Behind The Suspending Approval Of China Game ISBN

With the development of the Internet,China's game industry has entered a period of rapid growth.According to the report of CNG,in 2016,2017 and 2018,the actual sales revenue of China's game market reached 165.57 billion,203.61 billion and 214.44 billion(unit:yuan),respectively,with year-on-year growth rates of 17.7%,23.0%and 5.3%.Especially,the share of mobile game market in China reached 57%in 2017,and will continue to increase.And in 2018,China's game market revenue accounted for about 23.6%of the global game market.By 2019,the actual sales revenue of China's game industry reached 230.88 billion.However,from the above data,we can find that the growth rate of the game market revenue in China has significantly decreased in 2018,and the majority of the reason lies in the suspending approval of China Game ISBN happened in April 2018.On March 29,2018,Chinese National Radio and Television Administration issued a notice about game application and approval,saying that due to the reform of the organization,the release of all game ISBN has been suspended.This means that games that do not have a license number will not be able to make money on the regular basis.By the end of December 2018,Chinese government had resumed the approving of game ISBN,but the number of approval was far fewer than before.According to the statistics on the official website of Chinese National Radio and Television Administration,780 game ISBN were issued on average every month in 2017,516 in 2018(counts only the first four months),and 115 in 2019(counts only the first two months).Without the game ISBN,the game company cannot make profits through the normal operation of the game.It can only make profits through the previous game that have already obtained ISBN and in-game advertising,or even through other businesses.In this context,we discuss the following three aspects through the study of this event:1)the impact of this event on China's game industry;2)influencing factors behind this incident;3)the future development of China's game industry.First,through the study of financial data,it is found that more than half of the selected companies have a decline in game revenue,most of which are small and medium-sized companies,which means that the Matthew effect of the game market is intensified.It also finds that most of the companies that gave the regional distribution of revenue did not perform well in overseas market expansion.Secondly,through the collation and analysis of the first-hand interview and the supplementary analysis of the second-hand data(mainly the text description in the financial report),we study the impact of the event on the strategy changing of Chinese game enterprises.In this study,1-to-1 in-depth interviews are used to collect primary data,and the interview time was mainly concentrated in two periods.The first periods is in the middle of March 2020,the interview is structured on the basis of existing second-hand data collection,therefore,the purpose of interview is stronger.The interview contents a total of three interviewees,and a total of 90 minutes.The second period is designed in May,mainly to further supplement the existing conclusions and other contents.The interview has two people in total,and with a total of 65 minutes.Then the text data is encoded and the corresponding entry library is established.After coding and analyzing the data,it is found that the strategic adjustment of the enterprise lies in product and service innovation,business layout,and user acquisition&operation.For product service,they tend to take the route of high-quality products.For business layout,many companies begin to move to the video industry to lengthen the value of game IP,and also carry on e-sport industry;For the user side,most of them start fine operation,sinking the user group into a vertical segment in order to increase user stickiness and user payment rate.Then,we analyze the causes of the incident by continuously using the coded data,and find that there are two factors from inner side of the industry.First,Chinese companies generally lack innovation.Second,some companies try to spread illegal content through game to make profit.And the main factor from the society is the physical and mental health problems of teenagers.In order to protect the physical and psychological development of minors,Chinese government has to make corresponding rectification and restrictions on the game industry.Finally,based on the summary of the interview content and second-hand data,it is concluded that China's game industry will have the following trends in the future:(1)the domestic potential users are lesser,the aesthetic of domestic users is gradually improved,and users payment habit is constantly improved;(2)the operation methods,especially for domestic small companies,due to a late start,and insufficient capital and staff is not yet mature,but it is gradually approaching to the big magnates;(3)future games will be more quality and the categories will be more diversified.Different from big companies who tend to continue make use of the existing form of IP,small manufacturers are more likely to be innovative.At last,we try to analysis the future development of China's game industry,and make following advices:1)improve their own innovation to make high quality products,and combine with new technology to strengthen the ability of research and development;2)speed up the layout of oversea strategy and carry on fine localized operation;3)expand the game industry chain and cultivate related industries such as e-sport;4)make protection measures for teenagers and regulate the content of games.