Recently, with A-share gaming companies releasing their 2024 annual reports one after another, Time Finance has observed that some gaming companies have achieved significant performance improvements through popular games and overseas strategies, and the gaming industry as a whole is showing a trend of recovery and growth.

Especially in the past year, the Chinese gaming industry has ushered in a long-awaited 'version year'.

According to Time Finance, in 2024, the National Press and Publication Administration issued a total of 1416 new game licenses, a year-on-year increase of 32%. This number not only returned to the level of game license issuance in 2020, but also set a new high in nearly 5 years.

In 2025, with the normalization of license issuance and continued policy support, the gaming industry may usher in new development opportunities. Both game developers and players will feel the positive impact of this change.

According to Time Finance, among the 30 A-share gaming companies, 6 companies had a revenue of over 5 billion yuan last year, with a total revenue of nearly 63 billion yuan; Five companies had a net profit attributable to their parent company exceeding 1 billion yuan last year. Meanwhile, the total R&D expenditure of 30 A-share listed game companies reached 11.582 billion yuan last year.

Century Huatong and Sanqi Interactive Entertainment lead the revenue gap

From the revenue of 30 A-share gaming companies in 2024, Century Huatong (002602. SZ) ranked first in revenue, reaching 22.62 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 70.27%; Sanqi Interactive Entertainment (002555. SZ) ranked second in revenue with 17.441 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%; Shenzhou Taiyue (300002. SZ) ranked third in revenue with 6.452 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.22%.

Century Huatong stated that thanks to the stable performance of its popular overseas and phenomenal game products such as "Whiteout Survival" and "Endless Winter" launched by DianDian Interactive, the company has become one of the few star companies in the gaming industry that can maintain high growth in 2024, despite the overall industry data being flat both domestically and internationally.

Among them, "Whiteout Survival" not only took the lead in the ice and snow apocalypse survival theme track in 2024, becoming the best-selling mobile game in the global SLG category, but also drove Dian Dian Interactive's revenue to increase by 155% year-on-year to about 15 billion yuan in 2024, accounting for nearly 70% of Century Huatong's overall revenue, achieving multiple times the growth of profits and becoming the backbone of the company's performance.

Time Finance learned from Century Huatong that its subsidiary Shengqu Games also plans to build an overseas team this year to test its overseas distribution capabilities and accumulate experience for developing more product categories in overseas markets.

And Sanqi Interactive Entertainment, based on the long-term operational advantages of diversified products, has continuously expanded its evergreen game matrix. According to Time Finance, the highest monthly revenue of mobile games released globally by 37 Interactive Entertainment in 2024 exceeded 2.3 billion yuan. Its subsidiaries, including "Douluo Continent: Soul Master Duel," "Puzzles&Survival," "Call Me Boss," and "Mortal Immortal Cultivation: The Human World," have been in long-term stable operation for many years. The company's release of "Time Grocery Store" in 2024 has performed well, further enhancing Sanqi Interactive Entertainment's advantages in the distribution and operation of simulated business category products.

Among them, "Puzzles&Survival", as a phenomenon level product under Sanqi Interactive Entertainment that integrates the "three elimination+SLG" gameplay, has accumulated over 10 billion yuan in revenue since its launch in 2020, demonstrating its influence and growth potential as a global brand.

In addition, Shenzhou Taiyue's gaming products are mainly strategy based (SLG) mobile games. In 2024, the company's gaming business accounted for over 90% of its overseas revenue, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Shell Games, is one of the representative companies for Chinese mobile games going global.

According to the investor relations activity record released by Shenzhou Taiyue on April 27th, in 2024, the company's "Age of Origins" and "War and Order", which have been online for over 6 years and over 8 years respectively, maintained high revenue levels, achieving revenue of 3.454 billion yuan and 1.062 billion yuan for the whole year, demonstrating long-term operational advantages.

Zhang Shule, an Internet industry analyst, told Time Finance that compared with other types of games, SLG games are easier for foreign players to get started quickly and help manufacturers open overseas markets. At the same time, the development and operation of SLG are relatively easy, and it can quickly switch skins and create a large number of games with the same core to impact the market.

Afterwards, Kunlun Wanwei (300418. SZ), Perfect World (002624. SZ), and Kaiying Network (002517. SZ) all had revenues exceeding 5 billion yuan in 2024, with revenues of 5.662 billion yuan, 5.57 billion yuan, and 5.118 billion yuan, respectively. However, Perfect World's revenue in 2024 has experienced a relatively significant decline, with a year-on-year decrease of 28.5%.

In 2024, Perfect World will deeply reflect on its business strategy and product layout, comprehensively review the problems existing in the business process, systematically sort out its projects, and make reasonable choices based on strategic considerations. Take measures such as shutting down, optimizing teams, and reducing scale for some projects that do not conform to the company's development direction; Retain advantageous teams and focus resources on integrating them into more deterministic advantageous projects.

As a result, Perfect World suffered its first annual loss since going public last year, with a net profit attributable to the parent company of -1.288 billion yuan, but it did not rank last among A-share gaming companies. The companies with the highest net loss attributable to their parent companies last year were Kunlun Wanwei, Perfect World, and Cultural Investment Holdings (600715. SH), with net losses attributable to their parent companies reaching 1.595 billion yuan, 1.288 billion yuan, and 912 million yuan, respectively.

In terms of net profit attributable to shareholders last year, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment ranked first, reaching 2.673 billion yuan; In addition, Kaiying Network, Shenzhou Taiyue, Giant Network (002558. SZ), and Century Huatong all had a net profit attributable to their parent company of over 1 billion yuan last year, which were 1.628 billion yuan, 1.428 billion yuan, 1.425 billion yuan, and 1.213 billion yuan, respectively.