According to "Game News" on October 18th, Bilibili (referred to as "B Station") Guangzhou R&D Studio announced its dissolution, and CEO Ding Qianwei will leave the company. Except for a Japanese anime IP adaptation project "codename QQ13" that has been retained due to an external cooperation contract, all other projects have been cut.
B Station Guangzhou Game R&D Studio was acquired from Xinyuan Interactive. According to Tianyancha, Guangzhou Xinyuan Interactive Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2019 and has now been renamed Guangzhou Xingao Technology Co., Ltd. It is a developer of action games, with representative works including "Bee: Angel of the Abyss" and "Soul Street: Born to be King".
On October 19th, the interface news was sent to Xingao Technology. The other party stated that they were not clear about the matter and did not accept any interviews. On the relevant recruitment platform, the search for "Heart Source Interaction" did not display any results. The B station also informed the interface news that there is currently no response message available.
The company's 2020 annual report shows that 408 employees participate in social security. By 2022, this number will be 92. At present, the shareholders of Xingao Technology are Chen Huasheng and Zhanping, holding 86.25% and 13.75% respectively. Ding Qianwei withdrew from the shareholder in January 2022.
At this point, it is less than two years since Bilibili has taken Heart Source Interactive into its pocket. According to Tianyancha, in March 2022, Bilibili completed the acquisition of Xinyuan Interactive. According to the 2022 financial report of Bilibili, the company entered into a transaction with a certain game development company in February 2022, signing an agreement to acquire all equity interests in the game business, with a total cash consideration of 800 million yuan. After delivery, it owns 100% of its game business.
What Bilibili focuses on is the self-developed ability of Xinyuan Interactive, and stated in its financial report that "the goodwill generated by the acquisition is attributed to the group's strategy of expanding its independent research and development capabilities in game development". This transaction generated goodwill of 345 million yuan.
At that time, Xinyuan Interactive already had projects under research such as "Neon Sequence" and "Thousand Star Battle". With the acquisition of Bilibili, these games have also become assets of Bilibili. Neon Sequence "is a highly anticipated game in the gaming industry, which is already in a waiting state for release, but was suddenly cut in half in the first half of this year.
B station financial report
At present, B station still mainly relies on the stock performance of proxy mobile games "Blue Route" and "Fate/Brand Order", with "Blue Route" reaching a new high in non user numbers and revenue on its 6th anniversary.
But the growth of proxy games is clearly sluggish. From 2020 to 2022, the proportion of mobile gaming revenue to the company's total revenue has been declining year by year, at 40%, 26%, and 23%, respectively. In the first half of this year, it continued to decline to 19%. The history of a single mobile game contributing over 10% of net revenue also lingers in 2020.
In this case, Station B indicates that it wants to follow the self developed route of high-quality products.
Prior to this, the progress of self-developed games on Bilibili was not smooth. In August 2017, Bilibili launched its first self-developed game "Shendai Menghua Tan", which is a magical and cute card game that did not stir up any waves.
The B-site game is still under pressure, with the launch of the heavyweight new game "Shine! Youjun Girl" delayed, and the contribution of proxy game streaming continues to decline. In the first half of the year, mobile game service revenue was 2.023 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 16%. As of the end of June, gaming revenue has been declining year-on-year for three consecutive quarters.
The company has also adjusted its expected net income for the entire year of 2023 to 22.5 billion yuan to 23.5 billion yuan, a decrease from the previous 24 billion yuan to 26 billion yuan, mainly due to delays in the launch of several games and lower than expected revenue contributions from non core businesses such as IP derivatives and others.
On the other hand, since B Station CEO Chen Rui took over the gaming business in November last year, the organizational structure of the gaming department has undergone significant adjustments. Chen Rui believes that "in the past two years, the development of the gaming business has not been as expected, and the self-development of games has taken some detours. The self-development of games has been too extensive, greedy but fruitless
This can also explain why the expenses for terminating several game projects on Bilibili increased significantly in the second half of 2022. According to the financial report, in 2022, the cost of terminating game projects on Bilibili reached 526 million yuan, of which 417 million yuan was incurred in the second half of the year. The adjusted net loss of the company in the same year was 6.702 billion yuan.
Station B is cleaning up the mess of the previous' hooded rush '. In 2021, Bilibili invested in approximately 20 companies in the gaming business, far exceeding the 7 companies in 2020. I have invested in three game companies at the tens of millions level, including Dongji Six Senses, which once created the national style mortise and tenon game "Craftsman Wood", Cat Tree Network, which owns multiple software copyrights such as "Doll House Fantasy Night" and "Elvira Goddess Program", as well as the Magic Temple game with products including "Code name: peerless martial arts".