On July 21, the Chinese government released a report on China's gaming industry for the first half of 2022. The report showed that from January to June 2022, the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market was 147.789 billion CNY, down 1.80% year-on-year, showing the first year-on-year decline in recent years. The number of game users also dropped by 0.13% year-on-year.
Actual sales revenue and growth rate of China's self-developed games in the domestic market
From January to June 2022, China's domestic market for self-developed games’ actual sales revenue was 124.582 billion CNY, down 4.25% year-on-year. In terms of market scale, self-developed games still account for more than 80% of the actual revenue of China's game market. However, the proportion dropped slightly from 86.46% to 84.46% compared with last year’s 86.46% to 84.30%.
Actual sales revenue and growth rate of Chinese self-developed games in the overseas market
In addition to the domestic market, Chinese game companies continue to develop in overseas markets. The actual sales revenue of Chinese self-developed games overseas reached 8.989 billion USD (~60.79 billion CNY), up 6.16% year-on-year, but the growth rate has decreased. In the increasingly complicated international environment, the resistance of domestic game enterprises to going abroad has increased with higher risks.
China PC game market actual sales revenue and growth rate
The actual sales revenue of China's PC game market was 30.74 billion CNY, up 2.85% year-on-year.
China web game market actual sales revenue and growth rate
The actual sales revenue of China's web game market during this period was 2.706 billion CNY, down 10.4% year-on-year. The overall web game market continued to decline, and the market shrank further.
China console game market actual sales revenue and growth rate
As the overall performance of new products was weaker than the same period last year, the actual sales revenue of the Chinese console game market was 881 million CNY, down 1.02% year-on-year. This is 1.02% lower than the same period last year.
From January to June 2022, the actual sales revenue of China's mobile game market was 110.475 billion CNY, down compared with the same period last year, a decrease of 3.74%.
According to the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, market revenue and user numbers have doubly decreased mainly due to the decrease in user income during the pandemic, lower consumption willingness and the continuous increase in operating costs of game development companies.
The declining trend of user numbers indicates that the population advantage of the game industry has basically disappeared, and the field of developing games may have entered the era of stock competition.