If Tencent Games remains untouchable with its 25 billion euros generated in 2021, NetEase Games continues its growth by achieving a turnover of 10.2 billion euros in 2022, against 9.2 billion euros in 2021. Video games thus represent a majority share of NetEase’s total turnover (13.2 billion euros), whose other businesses include the Youdao search engine and the NetEase Cloud Music platform. The gross profit of the video game amounts to 6.4 billion euros in 2022 (5.7 billion euros in 2021) while NetEase in its entirety made a net profit of 2.7 billion euros ( 2.3 billion euros in 2021).
A little more in detail, online games represent 92.5% of video game sales, a proportion that has not changed since last year. Mobile games account for 67% of online games revenue, down from 70% in 2021. This decline is explained by the rise of PC games, NetEase Games citing Fantasy Westward Journey Onlinea popular MMO in China, and Naraka Bladepoint, the battle royale which, on the other hand, is sold to it all over the world. Mobile games are far from being in poor shape, however, and have generated more money than in 2021, let it be said. High-potential titles like Harry Potter: Magic Emerges And Naraka Bladepoint Mobile are also expected in 2023.
A family of studios under construction
And the consoles, in all this? Like other Asian giants like Tencent Games and Nexon, NetEase Games is slowly but surely continuing its transformation to expand to more platforms and more regions. As our readers know, NetEase Games is particularly often in the news for its investments in studios based in Japan (Nagoshi Studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, Sakura Studio, GPTRACK50), in America (Jackalope Games, Jar of Sparks, NetEase Games Montreal) and more recently in Europe (Quantic Dream, Spliced).
On the other hand, the year 2022 of NetEase Games will also remain that of the break with Blizzard, the first being so far the distributor of the games of the second since 2008. World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III: Reforged, Overwatch, StarCraft II, Diablo III And Heroes of the Storm are therefore no longer available in China since January 23, 2023 (Diablo Immortal forms part of another agreement and is not affected). According to some indiscretions, NetEase and Blizzard have also canceled at least one mobile game project World of Warcraft.