Editor's note: In the past two days, media reported that NetEase Games was planning a major layoff. NetEase Games later refuted the rumors and stated that it would increase the recruitment of global talents. However, from behind these news, it can be found that it is indeed difficult for Sina Games to return to its former glory. Now, under the pressure of Tencent, NetEase Games, the second-ranked game, is really a bit useless. So for NetEase, Is it possible for gaming to overtake Tencent?

In the past two days, there have been media reports that due to the decline in games, NetEase's Hangzhou R&D Institute has begun to lay off employees. It also stated that the scale of layoffs may reach 10, but NetEase immediately refuted the news, saying that not only We will not lay off 10 people, but we will also recruit talents globally to push NetEase games to a higher stage, not just in the domestic market. At the same time, NetEase Games also stated that in the overseas revenue list of Chinese APP developers released by relevant media, NetEase has been firmly in the top three from last year to now!

This means that NetEase will also invest heavily in games in the future. After all, NetEase is essentially very dependent on the game business! The game business currently belongs to the cash flow department and is also a pillar industry in NetEase. Other products are not performing well yet. What’s more serious is that since the end of last year, NetEase Yanxuan, NetEase Weiyang and related education products have laid off more than 30 people. On July 15, NetEase just denied the news of laying off 2,000 people in the media business. It can be seen that the game business is now suppressed by Tencent, and there are no major breakthroughs in other business levels. The innovative product NetEase Cloud Music has also encountered great difficulties. E-commerce companies that have high hopes, whether in terms of revenue or market share, The relevant profit performance is not good enough.

NetEase is changing from a very cool Internet company in the past few years to a traditional Internet manufacturer currently suffering from crisis and transformation. It is indeed faltering on the mobile side.

For NetEase, they actually know their own problems. For example, NetEase’s entire company is more focused on the gaming field. At the same time, NetEase’s model is different from that of Tencent Games, which has caused NetEase’s problems. Games are basically difficult to acquire a large number of users, or are popular among the public. Therefore, Ding Lei is also actively deploying, such as traditional portal information flow products and e-commerce, such as NetEase Kaola, NetEase Strict Selection, etc., as well as education and music products. But overall, neither the information flow nor the e-commerce business performance is that outstanding. Although the educational products are remarkable, they are just a drop in the bucket! The phenomenal music product NetEase Cloud Music suffers from copyright issues. At the same time, Ding Lei seems unwilling to invest huge sums of money in NetEase Cloud Music to purchase related copyrights. He is completely at a disadvantage in the copyright competition with Tencent Music.

In fact, other business levels are NetEase's exploratory products. Even if they encounter huge difficulties, they are within control. However, NetEase's pillar industry, NetEase Games, is suppressed by Tencent Games. This is actually It is difficult for NetEase to bear. In today's general environment, the tightening of game version numbers makes it difficult for Tencent and NetEase to break out in a short period of time. The various games developed cannot be monetized because they do not have version numbers. Secondly, Tencent has strongly entered the game field. In just a short period of time, it completely surpassed NetEase with its two phenomenal products.

For example, in the field of previous MOBA games, NetEase was actually more sophisticated than Tencent and launched earlier. Onmyoji once only took half a year to win 200 million global downloads. After that, Onmyoji faced strong competition from King of Glory, which even turned into a direct impact. It is a pity that Onmyoji could not withstand the strong offensive of King of Glory. At the chicken game level, the NetEase version of Knives Out’s user base is also declining very quickly. On the contrary, Tencent relied on stimulating the battlefield and swept the chicken-eating field.

Tencent’s games have had a dual-track system since then. Honor of Kings and Exciting Battlefield have almost completely occupied the mass game market.

In fact, over the years, NetEase’s games have always been IP-based, including Westward Journey, Fantasy Westward Journey, Mini Westward Journey, Brawl Westward Journey, etc. At the same time, NetEase's game model is not like Tencent's social model, but more like an alternative Blizzard. The problem is that although NetEase has the ability to make games and is relatively sophisticated and excellent in various painting styles and screen layouts, NetEase is too eager for game-level revenue, so it has been unable to operate and related strategies. Satisfying users, such as the previous Onmyoji and Ni Shuihan some time ago, have disappointed many users. NetEase Games' eagerness for quick success and quick profit ignores the feelings of mass users, especially the user feelings of most paying players.

As one of the portal websites, NetEase can actually be regarded as the first generation of the Internet. At the same time, it is also one of the few portal websites that are still developing well. NetEase and Sina can be regarded as survivors, and the remaining Sohu, Phoenix, etc. may have become marginal products! But the most serious problem is that NetEase’s revenue position is almost all given by the game level. During the transformation of mobile Internet, NetEase did not seize several opportunities, such as e-commerce, group buying, and of course There are information flow products. In the second half of e-commerce, NetEase wants to be a cross-border e-commerce business and also wants to be a so-called boutique store. However, the data of NetEase Kaola and NetEase Select are very ugly, and there are even a lot of negative news. This is definitely an unbearable pain for NetEase’s e-commerce companies!

At the education level, NetEase has done really well. Whether it is NetEase Cloud Classroom or NetEase Open Class, including a series of Youdao products, the overall performance is still relatively good. However, we say that at the education level, it is like NetEase's functional education products are theoretically unlikely to reach the boss level. The only one that NetEase has a foothold in the mobile Internet and is very stable is NetEase Cloud Music. However, from the beginning of NetEase Cloud Music to the present, although its reputation has increased rapidly, the core problems have not been solved, such as copyright issues, such as Speaking of payment model issues, these two points still plague NetEase until now. At the same time, should we increase investment to purchase copyrights, should we expand more charging models, and where should we start with the charging model? These are problems that NetEase Cloud Music urgently needs to solve.

Judging from the layout of related fields, NetEase has no chance in today’s hot projects. At the same time, including information flow products and e-commerce, the music aspect can be considered a relatively failure. The only product in the education field is currently performing relatively strongly, but it is far from being able to carry NetEase's future. So currently NetEase has actually entered a dead end, that is, game revenue determines NetEase's lifeline, and after NetEase's lifeline becomes strong, it will increase its investment in the game field. Such a cycle is indeed not a good thing for NetEase, and the market It is also facing competition between giants like Tencent. In essence, Tencent can rely on a phenomenal product to sweep across the entire domestic user base, but for NetEase, it can only attract users with a more strict and attractive payment model. part of the users.

So when NetEase denied layoffs, it may have temporarily alleviated the public's suspicions about NetEase, but the problems behind it are far from being solved. It is really difficult for NetEase to successfully soft-land on the mobile Internet.