1.    Sensor Tower: Wild Rift has earned over US$500 million

• The mobile MOBA ranked 2nd in revenue for H1 2022. It comes in behind Honor of Kings from Tencent but ahead of Brawl Stars from Supercell
• China is responsible for 72% of the overall earnings for the game

2.    NetEase Games announces new first-party studio

• NetEase Games has established Jar of Sparks, a first-party studio in the US aimed at creating “a new generation of narrative-driven action games.”
• Headquartered in Seattle, the new studio is building an international team. It will be led by newly appointed CEO Jerry Hook, who was the former head of design on the popular first-person shooter game Halo Infinite
• In June, NetEase’s shares dipped by nearly 7% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after the company delayed the release of its game, Diablo Immortal in China

3.    miHoYo total staff number has exceeded 4000 people

•  miHoYo opened its Singapore office this week, will create hundreds of job opportunities
• In addition to the Singapore headquarters, miHoYo also has overseas offices in Montreal, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Seoul. Since 2021, miHoYo has started to expand its overseas team crazily. At present, the total number of miHoYo employees has exceeded 4,000.
• The office in Montreal is working on a 3A open world action game and the office in LA is working on a 3A TPS

4.    Taiwan's "Gacha Law"is legislated: The probability of winning games must be disclosed, offenders will be fined up to US$16K

• According to the Central News Agency of Taiwan's media, the Ministry of Economic Affairs is expected to officially issue a specific announcement on August 1, and this regulation is not only aimed at game companies in Taiwan, but also applied to all foreign gaming companies from the United States, Japan, and South Korea through Taiwan's repetitive to launch games in Taiwan
• Gaming companies to publish in Taiwan is required to disclose the odds of winning, define the definition of the odds of winning the lottery, define the method of revealing the odds of winning the lottery

 5.    Chinese Giant Gaming Companies: Reduce cost and increase efficiency, Tencent, ByteDance, NetEase, 37 games mass lay off and cancel game projects

• 37 games:

1. 37 games closed Chengdu office, lay off all 30+ staff
2. Chengdu office is game art design office of 37 games

• NetEase games:

1. Netease Beijing game development studio is closed, the studio was open only last year’s Sep
2. Most of the staff can choose go to another game studio of NetEase’s.
3. Beijing game studio was focusing on MMORPG

• Tencent

1. Tencent closed NFT trading platform – Huanhe

• Bytedance

1. Oct 2021, Commercial team lay off staff
2. Jan’ 22, investment team lay off all staff and close the department
3. Jun’ 22, 101 game studio closed
4. Bytedance now has 110K people

6.    Perfect World game business achieved a huge increase in net profit in H1'22, net profit rose by more than 400%

• Total business and game business net profit:

1. Total Business: US$164 M ~US$171M, a YoY increase of 331%-350%
2. Game business: US$1714 M ~US$177M, a YoY increase of 420%-438%

• Fantasy New Jade Dynasty & Fantasy Tower contributed the most to the performance
• Oversea Business

1. In terms of overseas business, the company has disposed and optimized overseas projects and overseas teams for two consecutive years. In 2020, Echtra Games Inc. was sold to Zynga for a consideration of US$125 million. This year H1 sold the and related local distribution teams in Europe and the United States for a consideration of US$400 million. down 35.3% year-on-year in 2021, and the proportion of overseas revenue continue decreasing

7.    Blockman GO', the 'Roblox' from Garena arrives in Mexico: release date and compatible device

• Blockman GO is Garena's new mini-game platform, is now available for PC and mobile
• On 12th Jul, Garena has launched Blockman GO, a completely free platform full of interesting mini-games
• There are titles that range from shooters to adventure and crafting games
• There is an editor mode in which you create your own games
• Blockman GO' is registered on the Apple App Store as a 4+ game , while it has a 3+ registration on the Google Play Store
• iOS

8.    Google Play to allow alternative billing systems, but only for non-gaming apps

• The European Parliament passed the Digital Markets Act earlier this month and, with the legislation applicable both throughout the EU and for companies based elsewhere, Google has now confirmed its recognition of said legislation by allowing the use of alternative billing systems
• Throughout Google’s statement, the company reinforced that these changes apply to non-gaming app
• Google intends to continue with Google Play’s billing systems for games distributed to players inside and out of the EEA for now, but did share that it expects to expand alternatives for gaming app developers in the future – specifically for users in the EEA (European Economic Area)

9.    Didi fined US$1.2b in China for violating data security rules

• China’s cybersecurity authority has imposed a fine of a little over 8 billion yuan (about US$1.2 billion) on Didi Global, bringing an end to a year-long investigation into the ride-hailing giant’s data security practices
• The Cyberspace Administration of China has also imposed a fine of US$148,000 each on two senior Didi executives, Will Cheng Wei and Jean Liu Qing

10. Drake Star Partners: Gaming M&A and investments hit 651 deals worth US$107B in first half

• 2022 has been the hottest year in gaming with staggering US$107B+ in total deal value of 651 announced and/or closed deals in the first 6 month alone
• Unprecedented industry consolidation with over $95B in announced and/or closed M&A activity across mobile, PC / console, and esports. 6 mega billion-dollar plus deals included the largest ever gaming acquisition of Activision by Microsoft, Zynga by Take-Two, Bungie by Sony, and ESL+FACEIT by Savvy Games/PIF. Mobile was the most active segment with 47 deals
• A record breaking $7B+ was invested through VCs and strategics in private gaming companies during the first half with 11 large US$100m+ rounds
• More than US$2.2B was raised by private blockchain / NFT gaming companies with over half of total amount raised by early-stage companies. Most active investors were Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, and FTX

11. China Game Industry H1'22 report

• China domestic & oversea markets revenue H1'22:

1. Domestic Game Market revenue: US$22 Billion, a YoY decrease of 1.80%, the first YoY decline in recent years; User Size has a YoY Decrease 0.13%
2. Self-developed Domestic game revenue: US$18 Billion, a YoY decrease of 4.25%
3. Self-developed games overseas market revenue:  US$8.989 billion, a YoY increase of 6.16%
4. Mobile games accounting for 75% of total revenue while PC games account for 20.80%
5. Mobile game domestic market revenue:US$16 Billion, a YoY decrease of 3.74%; In H1’22, due to the lack of popular new products in the mobile game market, revenue mainly relied on the support of old products

• Oversea Game Market:

1. In 2022, Chinese mobile games expanding into more diverse oversea markets:  US and Japan are still the main markets for mobile games going overseas; The proportion of other regions is increasing year by year
2. Game genres published in oversea markets: SLG, Shooting and RPG accounted for 70% of total revenue, SLG proportion is only 20% compared with 28% last year

• MI Insight:

1. In 2022, Chinese gaming companies are expanding into oversea markets strongly due to the tightened regulations back home
2. Competition is getting intense, pushing the Chinese publishers to expand into more genres in oversea game markets
3. Game revenue will rise again due to the new games licenses released

12.Chinese Games in Oversea markets: Performances in June'22

• Genshin Impact

1. With the release of version 2.7 on May 30, the game characters, plots and activities have been updated
2. Genshin impact overseas revenue has increased by 85% MoM, returning to the top 1 seat
3. Japan contributed the most game revenue growth

• Diablo Immortal

1. Topped the iOS mobile game download list in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea and Japan and other markets
2. Ranked third on the overseas revenue list in this issue, and the game's estimated overseas revenue in June exceeded US$54 million

• State of survival and Pubg Mobile ranked at 2nd and 4th in the list

13. Square Enix teams up with Enjin to make Final Fantasy VII NFT collectibles

• Square Enix has teamed up with Enjin to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for digital collectibles for the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII
• The digital collectibles will be accessible to consumers who purchase items in the physical collection, which is expected to launch in 2023
• Square Enix signaled it would make investments in innovative technologies like blockchain even as it sold off its Western game studios

14. Zebedee raised US$35 millions

• Zebedee has raised US$35 million in a new round of funding to develop its Bitcoin-based payment systems for games further and integrate with new partners
• Investors: Kingsway Capital, global merchant bank The Raine Group, video game giant Square Enix, Lakestar and Initial Capital
• Zebedee enables programmable payments and small transactions to power economies for virtual worlds with near-zero fees
• Zebedee has created a platform that allows any game developer to easily add programmable money into their games. Anything that happens in a game can trigger a payment, which is sent instantly and at nearly zero cost

15. Minecraft bans NFTs

• Mojang and Minecraft has responded for calls for clarification regarding its position on NFTs by taking a firm stance against them, stating that they have no plans to support them in the future
• Although the Minecraft Usage Guidelines allow players to charge for server access, rules are in place to ensure that everyone has access to the same content
• The statement, released yesterday, states that NFTs “can create a model of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our Guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft”
• Concerns regarding inclusivity were key in the decision