ByteDance buys a stake in Youai Muyu, want to do heavy games overseas?

 A few days ago, the company's information showed that ByteDance bought a 5.9% stake in Youai Huyu and acquired a company under Youai Huyu through its wholly-owned subsidiary "Stop to Perfect". The current legal person of "Stop to the Best" is the person in charge of Bytedance Games, Yan Shi.

Youai Huyu is a domestic mobile game research and development and distribution company. Its product types focus on RPG two-dimensional and strategic categories, represented as "Red Alert OL Mobile Games" and "Idle Girl". Among them, "Idle Girl" focuses on the Japanese market, and has appeared on the Japanese income list for more than three years. In the September revenue list of Chinese mobile game publishers, Youai Huyu ranked 19th.

Based on Youai Huyu's achievements in the medium-to-heavy field and the overseas market, Bytedance’s investment is regarded by the outside world as a signal of its overweight game overseas and its layout.

ByteDance has entered the overseas game market since the end of 2019. Two months ago, it also invested in Microlab games , which focuses on the ultra-casual markets in Europe and America . At present, ByteDance is progressing smoothly in the overseas casual game market, but medium to heavy games are still unfamiliar. Will investing in love and mutual entertainment be the beginning? Is there a chance for ByteDance to go to sea for moderate to severe games?

Rely on traffic capacity to cut into casual games

ByteDance's game exploration began in 2019, and the field of entry is casual games.

In October 2019, ByteDance jointly released the overseas version of the casual game "Brain Hole Master". In December, "My Kung Fu Special Cow", exclusively released by Ohayoo, a distribution platform owned by ByteDance, was launched in Japan.

After "My Kung Fu Special Cow" was launched in Japan, it carried out localization iterations and opened the market through buying volume. In March of this year, this game successfully topped the Japanese App Store free game list and entered the South Korean App Store free game list Top10.

According to analysis by industry insiders, the reason why ByteDance can quickly open the overseas casual game market is that casual games are essentially a "traffic business"-promotion through purchases and monetization through advertising-this is exactly the word The area where the festival beats best.

ByteDance began entering casual games in China in 2018. In 2019, more than 10 casual games published by ByteDance's agency entered the TOP10 free list of domestic iOS games. With the huge traffic of Douyin and Toutiao , and the operation of the huge number of engines on the commercial platform , Bytedance has become the largest player in the domestic casual game market.

"Tencent used to look down on the leisure market. It only reacted last year, but now it can't keep up with the byte." Zhang Yang (pseudonym), COO of a domestic game manufacturer, told "Xiaguangshe."

The outbreak of TikTok overseas has supported Byte to replicate this traffic business overseas. In 2019, TikTok has been downloaded more than 700 million times. In July 2020, TikTok's global monthly life has reached 700 million. Coupled with the expansion of massive engines overseas, the conditions for Byte to make casual games overseas are ripe.

After the success of "My Kung Fu Special Cow" in Japan and South Korea, ByteDance has also successively released a number of casual games overseas, including "Being an Agent, Go Up a Hundred Floors" and "Small Soldiers Don't Be Arrogant".

According to Sensor Tower's data, "A Hundred Floors Are Only an Agent" was downloaded nearly 8.1 million times worldwide in September this year. The top three markets for downloads are India, Russia and Mexico. The game also ranked third in the September "China Mobile Games Downloads List" released by Sensor Tower.

In addition, Ohayoo officially stated that "Don't Be Arrogant" in Germany, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South Korea three months after it was launched, it firmly ranks in the top 20 of the Google play rankings, with a daily flow of over one million.

Relying on the global scale of traffic ecology and traffic operation capabilities, Bytedance is expected to continue to grow in the global casual game market. "Release, buy volume, liquidity, played too hard cooked byte practiced ," Zhang Yang said, "It is fully capable of copying a Voodoo."

Can Bytes be successful when going to sea in a moderate to severe time?

This year, Bytedance continues to increase its share of the overseas game market. In addition to continuing to publish games, it has made frequent moves in investment.

At the beginning of the year, foreign media reported that Bytedance is in contact with overseas game developers and plans to expand overseas R&D capabilities through acquisitions. Since August, ByteDance has successively invested in Microlab Games and Youai Mutual Entertainment.

Among them, Microlab Games focuses on European and American casual game development. According to the data, its casual games such as "Starry Nuts", "What's This", and "Fatty Cow" have been recommended by Google globally, and the click-elimination mobile game "Angry Birds Blast" has entered the top 5 in the category of global revenue.

Youai Interactive Entertainment has outstanding performance in the Japanese and Korean markets. In March 2017, the beautiful girl RPG mobile game "Idle Girl" launched by Youai Huyu was launched in Japan. According to Sensor Tower, the total revenue of the game since its launch has been close to 400 million U.S. dollars, and it ranked 9th in the September "China Mobile Games Revenue List".

From the perspective of the two invested companies, the Bytedance game is not limited to a single market, but hopes to be widely deployed on a global scale.

Another signal reflected by the investment in Youai Mutual Entertainment is that byte games may be tried overseas in heavy games.

Root App Annie shows that in addition to "Idle Girl", other works of Youai Huyu (issued account is C4GAMES) are also heavier RPG mobile games. ByteDance’s investment in Youai, naturally, cannot be a blessing to the casual game business, but rather focuses on its ability to go abroad for heavy games.

In fact, some people in the game industry once told the "Xiaguang Society" that Bytedance had previously tried to deploy heavy games overseas, including SLG, MMO, and other categories through self-research and distribution, but it has not yet achieved particularly obvious results. .

Zhang Yang believes that if Bytedance explores medium to severe directions, the process may be more difficult, whether it is domestic or overseas. The research and operation of moderate to heavy games requires a strong industry understanding and experience accumulation. This is not the field where Bytedance is good.

Xiaoxi (pseudonym), a planner who has been engaged in overseas medium to heavy game development for six years, also shared his views on "Xiaguangsha". He participated in an interview with the Bytedance game development department last year, but eventually gave up the offer of Bytedance and chose another smaller game company.

Xiaoxi told the "Xiaguangshe" that ByteDance has no game genes. After several rounds of interviews, he has strengthened his idea. Because it was judged that ByteDance was difficult to succeed in mid-to-severe games, so I didn't choose to join.

In the mid-to-severe game going overseas, we only look at Chinese manufacturers. T0 echelon Tencent and Netease understand games far beyond other companies. T1 echelon manufacturers such as Lilith and Funplus also have their own unique advantages and deep accumulation.

In this field, Bytedance is only a pupil. I'm afraid there is still a long way to go to do moderate to severe.