NetDragon 25th Anniversary | Game technology starts from “new” and moves towards “quality”

In the context of the accelerated integration of numbers and reality, the video game industry is becoming a battleground for global technological innovation, and Chinese game companies seem to be one of the protagonists in the field. From initial introduction and imitation to now gradually embarking on a path of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics, domestic games have experienced a spectacular transformation from following to leading the way.NetDragon, 25, is a participant and witness to this history. Over the past 20 years, it has worked with many game companies and has become an important force in promoting scientific and technological innovation and industrial development with its continuous spirit of innovation.

Time goes back to the early millennium, when the Chinese game market was dominated by imported games, and the vast majority of companies chose to import overseas games to quickly recoup their investments. In this context, NetDragon has shown a different strategic vision, firmly embarked on the path of independent research and development, and became a leader in independent game innovation in China.

In 2001, NetDragon released its first self-developed work, “Phantom Ranger”. Over the next 20 years, NetDragon continued to innovate and seek change, writing game industry legends one after another.

In March 2002, “Phantom Ranger” was officially launched, allowing domestic players to experience the fun of an original online game for the first time. In an age where the total number of netizens was only 50 million, the number of people online at the same time surpassed 60,000.

Since then, NetDragon has independently developed a game engine, mastered the core technology of the game, and created the large-scale MMORPG online game “Conquest”, which was launched in 2003, and is known as “the Chinese own martial arts online game.” A year later, the overseas version of “Conquest” was launched, and the NetDragon game's overseas journey immediately began. Today, “Conquer” is still active in major game markets around the world and has countless fans.

In 2006, the large-scale magical-themed online game “Magic Domain” was officially open beta, and since then a new era of domestic magical-themed MMORPGs has begun. Since the launch of “Magic Domain”, it has set many game industry records. Today, “Magic Domain” has generated more than 10 billion dollars, joined the ranks of the “10 billion club” of domestic mobile games, received dozens of top important awards, and is known as “China's No. 1 PK Online Game”. Recently, “Magic Domain” IP's new masterpiece “Magic Domain Remake” began the first round of technical testing, once again showing the strong vitality of this classic online game IP.

The MOBA game “Soul Blade”, which was released in public beta in 2015, became the most popular new game after “League of Legends” back then. Since then, “Soul Blade Pocket Edition”, “Magic Domain Mobile Game”, and “Magic Domain Mobile Game 2”...Games loved by players have been released one after another, further consolidating NetDragon's leading position in the Chinese game industry.

Adhere to the “long-term refined operation” strategy, carefully polish the game content, storyline and unique gameplay of each game product, and strive to create an original IP that is deeply popular, so that NetDragon game products have always been welcomed by players. Today, NetDragon games cover 11 languages and more than 180 countries and regions. According to the 2023 performance report,NetDragon's game business revenue in 2023 reached a record high of 3.76 billion yuan, an increase of 9.6% over 2022.

As a pioneer in industry innovation, NetDragon has long incorporated “innovation” into the DNA of enterprise development. Dr. Liu Dejian, Chairman of NetDragon, pointed out, “One of NetDragon's most important core capabilities is that we can continuously learn and master new technologies, and dare to use new technologies to create new products, new services, and even new markets.”

NetDragon, which has been deeply involved in the game market for many years, has a deep technical heritage and a R&D team composed of industry elites. They have deep professional knowledge, rich project experience and keen market insight, making NetDragon strong R&D capabilities.

On this basis, the game engine independently developed by NetDragon has also become one of its core competencies. Engine technology development and upgrades are carried out through extensive resources, which not only allows the development team to fully control the game development process, but also provides strong support for innovating gameplay and improving game quality.

At the same time, NetDragon closely monitors and actively lays out cutting-edge technology fields such as AI, VR/AR, cloud computing, and big data, and ensures that the company remains at the cutting edge of the industry in terms of key technologies through independent research and development and industry-university-research cooperation.

Relying on resources and technical advantages accumulated over many years, NetDragon incorporates generative AI into various aspects of each game IP, such as character drawing, scene modeling, and game operation. This includes using AIGC to increase the speed of original picture generation, shorten the art production cycle, and effectively enhance players' immersion through self-developed game mechanisms such as intelligent playmate AI and smart NPCs, bringing players a richer and more realistic gaming experience.

“We use AI technology to improve the level of intelligence in game content generation and update, use VR/AR technology to create an immersive gaming experience, and build a better game ecosystem through cutting-edge technology, thus forming a 'new quality of productivity' that distinguishes it from traditional games.” Li Jia, CTO of Tianqing and vice president of NetDragon Gaming Business, said that in the next 2-3 years, NetDragon Games will give full play to its core competencies such as technical strength and innovation capabilities, multi-platform support and cross-terminal advantages, boutique games and IP development, metaverse layout and technology investment, and continue to launch high-quality game products with “new quality productivity”, maintain a leading position in the industry, and continue to create an unparalleled gaming experience for global players.

Furthermore, in the face of the future trend of the metaverse, NetDragon Games actively lays out and invests a large amount of resources in research and development to build a highly immersive, highly interactive, and self-circulating virtual world. We are committed to breaking the boundaries between reality and virtual, creating new social, entertainment and consumption scenarios, and forming a metaverse ecosystem covering diverse fields such as games, education, culture, and art.With this forward-looking layout and investment, NetDragon Games is expected to take the lead in achieving a breakthrough in “new quality productivity” in the metaverse era, moving towards “quality”, and leading the transformation of the industry.

Currently, games have long since moved away from a single entertainment attribute and have become an important industry for the country's industrial layout and scientific and technological innovation.The attributes and functions of games as cultural carriers have been further highlighted, and it has become the consensus of NetDragon and many outstanding game companies to shoulder the mission of cultural communication and carry out game corporate responsibilities.

Relying on its many influential gaming IPs, NetDragon actively contributes to empowering the education industry, implementing social responsibility, helping to pass on culture, and carrying out public welfare.

Bringing “Shanhai Jing” into the game world, replicating the world cultural heritage site building in game products and incorporating it into game level design, and collaborating with the inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage to restore game characters with shadow techniques... These cultural products, which remain in the field of traditional perception, are vividly displayed in front of players one by one through 3D animation forms unique to video games and enter their hearts, bringing new life and vitality to traditional culture in the game.

In overseas markets, NetDragon continues to refine expressions from a Chinese perspective that can be easily accepted by different cultures and people. For example, every year on Tanabata, they launch a global flower show to connect players at home and abroad to show traditional Valentine's Day with Chinese characteristics; during the Mid-Autumn Festival, they launch special reunion packages and give “mooncakes” in games, etc., bringing players an immersive national style experience. We continue to create content in game products using Chinese stories, traditional Chinese festivals, and myths and legends as inspiration to promote Chinese culture to “go global” and help “tell Chinese stories well.”

“We are also working with China Tiger Park to popularize science on the protection and derivative knowledge of South China tigers. Our game 'Tiger Mountain Forest' charity program calls for the protection of endangered South China tigers through diverse fun content and activities to raise public awareness about the protection of wild animals such as South China tigers.” Lin Chen, senior vice president of NetDragon Network, explained that for traditional culture and game IP, the two empower and complement each other. Through ACG linkage to the launch of derivatives, the combination of traditional culture and the pan-entertainment industry has made young people fall in love with traditional culture.

Up to now,NetDragon has been selected by authoritative media for 5 consecutive years as a “Chinese game enterprise with outstanding social responsibility performance”.NetDragon has made positive contributions in environmental protection, social responsibility, corporate governance, etc., and has also been widely recognized by domestic and foreign authorities. In 2023, NetDragon's ESG performance continued to break through, and was selected as the “Sustainability Yearbook (China Edition)” first published by S&P Global (S&P Global) in June.Together with Tencent, NetEase, and Baidu, it became the four selected Chinese Internet companies.In December 2023, NetDragon received an ESG rating from MSCI (Ming Sheng), an internationally authoritative index company, upgraded its ESG rating to BBB, a significant increase over the previous rating, and won high recognition.