China's largest game exhibition, ChinaJoy, kicked off on July 28th and runs until the 31st at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. The exhibition celebrates its 20th anniversary and has expanded in scale following the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, promising a grand and exciting event that has accompanied the industry for two decades.
This year, the B2C exhibition area of ChinaJoy will utilize 12 exhibition halls, attracting nearly 500 companies to participate. Prominent Chinese game developers such as Tencent Games, NetEase, Perfect World, Xishanju, and Xindong Network will be present, along with international game companies including Ubisoft, SIE, and EA.
ChinaJoy 2023
The organizing committee also held the China International Digital Entertainment Industry Conference the day before the exhibition, during which the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association released the "China Game Industry Report for the First Half of 2023." The report indicates that the sales revenue of China's game market from January to June amounted to 144.263 billion RMB, a decrease of 2.39% compared to the same period last year, but a growth of 22.2% compared to the previous period. It emphasizes that the market is gradually recovering and predicts a strong rebound in the second half of the year.
The report mentions that the number of game users in China has reached 668 million, an increase of 0.35% compared to the same period last year, reaching a historical high. The revenue of domestically developed games in China reached 121.784 billion RMB, a decrease of 2.25% compared to the same period last year, but an increase of 24.5% compared to the previous period. As for the revenue of Chinese-developed games in overseas markets, it reached 8.206 billion USD, a decrease of 8.72% compared to the same period last year. The main reasons for this decline are the impact of the economic downturn on overseas players' consumption willingness and ability, international conflicts, exchange rate fluctuations, and increasingly fierce market competition, which have significantly increased the operational and marketing costs for Chinese game developers in overseas markets. The United States, Japan, and South Korea are the main overseas markets for Chinese action games, with market shares of 31.77%, 19.65%, and 8.5%, respectively. Among the top 100 mobile games in terms of overseas revenue, strategy, and role-playing games are the most popular, accounting for over 50% combined.
ChinaJoy 2023
In terms of the Chinese game market, mobile games accounted for 73.97% of the revenue, online games accounted for 22.84%, and web games continued to decline, accounting for 1.64%. The revenue of the Chinese mobile game market in the first half of this year was 106.705 billion RMB, a decrease of 3.41% compared to the same period last year. Among the top 100 mobile games in terms of revenue in China, MOBA games accounted for the highest proportion at 16.72%, followed by shooting games at 16.37% and role-playing games at 13.57%. However, the role-playing game genre, which was the top genre in 2021 with a 22% market share, has dropped to the third position this year, showing a significant decline.
ChinaJoy 2023
As for online games, the revenue in the first half of the year was RMB 32.943 billion, an increase of 7.17% compared to the same period. The report attributes this mainly to the stable development of esports and second-dimensional games, as well as the simultaneous release of many new games on both mobile and PC platforms. The revenue of the home console game market was 0.747 billion RMB, a decrease of 15.16% compared to the same period last year, mainly due to the weaker performance of new console games compared to the same period last year. The revenue of web games amounted to 2.385 billion RMB, a decrease of 11.87% compared to the same period last year.
Source: GNN