On October 11, Glacier Network released its performance forecast for the first three quarters of this year. According to the forecast, the company is expected to have a net loss of 410 million yuan to 510 million yuan in the first three quarters, a year-on-year decrease of 288.95% to 335.03%, turning from profit to loss.

In 2023, Glacier Network's annual net profit will be 273 million yuan. This means that in the first three quarters of this year, the company lost about twice the net profit of last year.

In recent months, Glacier is still sticking to the side game and has verified a new way of playing, can it save the performance?

This article is reprinted from the official account Dataeye Game Observation.

01

Colored dot connection, sniper villain,

The new sub-gameplay brings download growth

According to Diandian data, the Google version of Glacier's "Titan War" is estimated to have a peak after September 10, exceeding 10,000 times per day, an increase of about 30% from the previous 8,000 times per day. However, this material seems to be more popular on Google, and Apple's estimated downloads continue to decline, about 500-1000 times a day.

How exactly did Titan War come about? How to interpret it?

"Titan War" is a fantasy lawn mowing game (vampire like), early throwing grass mowing materials, and then throwing crossed lines to save dogs, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of parkour, screws, walking points to catch people and other side games.

Starting in September, Titan War has transformed its gameplay ideas. Start pitching two types of materials:

First, the dots are connected. This type of material is the mainstream, showing the gameplay of connecting dots of the same color within a circle, supplemented by a funny soundtrack, plus an indication of the IQ value at the top of the screen, reflecting the "intelligence test" attribute of the sub-gameplay.

Many versions of this type of material also include live-action content, showing different people playing color dots in different forms, reflecting the popularity and virality of the gameplay.

Second, sniping villains. This type of material allows users to find hidden villains to snipe in everyday scenes such as offices, restrooms, gyms, etc. Pair it with "Find Everyone!" or "Can you find it?" Copywriting presentation.

Some versions of this type of material also include live-action content, mainly to show that the gameplay of the sniper villain is challenging.

According to the data of the overseas version of ADX, in terms of putting on the market, "Titan War" has been mainly launched in the United States market in the past 30 days, and the number of materials released has reached 1400+, accounting for 39.08% of all market. The rest of the top 10 launch regions are the European market.

In terms of delivery ports and media, "Titan War" was launched across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and FacebookAudience, with an average of more than 3,700 sets of creative. These four media ports are also the consistent choice of Titan War.

Specifically, the United States market is the largest market among the download distribution sources on Google. Diandian Data estimates that it recorded more than 100,000 downloads in the market in September, accounting for 22%. Secondly, the game performed well in the entire South American market, with more than 100,000 downloads in Colombia and more than 550,000 downloads in Peru and Argentina.

Both of these materials bring new downloads and new market possibilities for Titan War, and it will be interesting to see if "Color Dot Connection" can become a new sub-gameplay standard.

02

Glacier Game Matrix

The lineup of sub-gameplay is fully rolled out

In the past, when it came to glaciers, the general impression in the industry was "Super World" and "X-Hero", as well as sub-gameplay materials such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division parkour, screwing, crossing lines to save dogs, and walking to catch people. In fact, since the beginning of this year, the products and playing methods of glaciers have begun to show a matrix form, and the details are as follows:

Glacier is forming a unique way of playing: there are many product matrices, a wide range of markets, and frequent replacement of sub-gameplay materials. There are clear pros and cons to this set of plays:

Pros: A large number of super casual/leisure users, cost-effective; The material is not limited by product attributes, and the sub-gameplay design has a lot of room to play, and the material is highly variable; Under the matrix idea, the game has its own attack regions, and can also use general materials to cross-verify the effect, and quickly find out the material content suitable for different markets.

Disadvantages: low retention, need to put in the amount of shop, need to buy a large amount of continuous investment; Players in mature markets and small markets will gradually become immune to the "old routines", and there may be a sharp decline in returns after users have been washed over a wave; The consumption of sub-gameplay is fast, and it is necessary to constantly provide new material ideas; In the face of market advertising policies in certain regions, there may be potential risks of non-compliance in the future.

03

From a performance dark horse to a profit black hole?

The secondary play is a double-edged sword

According to public data, Glacier Network has achieved a leap in financial performance in the past five years. In 2019, the company's revenue was 412 million yuan and its net profit reached 161 million yuan. In 2020, revenue fell slightly and net profit halved. In 2021, Glacier Network's net profit will be in the red for the first time in the past five years, although the revenue will reach 507 million, the net profit will be 63 million.

From the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, Hero Clash and Epic War were launched one after another, and Glacier also started the mode of buying large amounts of sub-gameplay. The next two years in a row. Glacier has achieved both revenue and net profit growth, and last year it set a new record for the company. But at the same time, the huge gap between revenue and profit also reflects the high cost of buying the game.

Since the beginning of 2024, the operation of glaciers is not optimistic. Judging from the mid-year report, Glacier lost a net profit of 551 million yuan in the first half of this year, and the company predicts a net loss of 410 million yuan to 510 million yuan in the third quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 288.95% to 335.03%, turning from profit to loss.

The previous semi-annual report showed that each of the main products of the glacier network spent more than 100 million yuan on promotion. The company's sales expenses in the first half of the year reached 1.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 53%. Among them, "Hero Clash", "Epic War", "Titan War", "Merge Topia", "Kingdom Go! A total of 900 million yuan was spent, accounting for 65% of the sales expenses.

In the first half of the year, the promotion cost of "Hero Clash" was as high as 475 million yuan, but only 225 million yuan was earned, and the proportion of promotion expenses to total revenue was 211%. Titan War and Merge Topia also achieved 179% and 138% of promotion revenue ratios, respectively. The high cost of buying volume and the decline in the actual revenue of the game have made these games that rely on secondary gameplay enter a "watershed" position that may be unbalanced at any time.

After all, the game of sub-play purchase volume is a game of "digital balance", which is directly affected by the purchase volume indicators of all aspects of the market, as well as the game content and player retention rate. When this balance is broken, profits may decline sharply, and it is difficult to make a quick adjustment in such a large buying volume.

DataEye Research found that since September, Glacier has stopped the release of Merge Topia in Japan and South Korea, which has been the main market for the game since its launch in the middle of this year. Perhaps under the financial pressure and the overall poor performance of the product, Glacier took the lead in placing the new tour on the "bench".

In terms of main products, Glacier is still actively exploring sub-gameplay. One of the two new materials in "Titan War" is one of them, which shows that they are also actively adjusting their material strategy on the basis of the old routine of the sub-gameplay, and focusing more of their buying resources on the main product.

The next revenue performance of these games will tell us what the next stage of the sub-gameplay will be, which will also be crucial to its next business performance.

The article creative is from the overseas version of ADX.

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