The number of games released on leading platforms reached a record high throughout the year. “Black Myths” continues to win awards. Premium content and IP are expected to continue to build a strong foundation for high-quality games and empower the development of the game industry.
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Huajin Securities released a research report saying that according to SteamDB, the Steam platform released a total of 18,825 new games in 2024, breaking last year's record of 14,311 games and setting a new high. Recently, the NYX Game Awards officially selected “Black Myths: Goku” as the best game of 2024, and the company's game science behind it was also listed as a selected brand. Also, according to Steam's year-end review data, premium old games still take up most of players' gaming time. The number of games released on leading platforms reached a record high throughout the year, and “Black Myths” continues to win awards. Premium content and IP are expected to continue to build a strong foundation for high-quality games and empower the development of the game industry.
The main views of Huajin Securities are as follows:
The number of new game releases on leading platforms has reached a record high, and online users have repeatedly reached new highs. According to SteamDB, in addition to the record number of games released in 2024, the number of online users on the platform also hit new highs several times this year, breaking through 39 million in early December, reaching 39,205,447, surpassing last year's peak of about 8 million. Of these, 1901 games were released in October alone, a record high. The leading platform ecosystem is prosperous, and the game industry is steady, moderate and improving.
“Black Myths” continues to receive recognition, a boutique game with technology+culture+IP multi-wheel drive. The NYX Game Awards are a prestigious international award that recognises award-winning 3A and indie games of creativity and technical excellence across all platforms. “Black Myths: Goku” was named “Game of the Year” by this award, and continues to highlight its multi-dimensional gold content. According to SteamDB, among the games released in 2024, “Joker Card” ranked first in the Steam game list with a positive review rate of 96.73%, and “Black Myths: Goku” ranked seventh with a positive review rate of 95.84%. According to the latest VGI data, “Black Myths: Goku” has sold more than 22.1 million copies on the Steam platform, and the total game revenue exceeds 1.1 billion US dollars (currently about 7.974 billion yuan). Quality culture and IP are expected to continue to inject strong momentum into the game industry.
Feelings and IP drive quality old tours, and look forward to industrial prosperity brought about by the new travel matrix. According to Steam's year-end review data, 47% of Steam users spend 47% of their time on games launched in the past 1-7 years, while 37% of their time is focused on classic games that have been released for more than 8 years, while only 15% of the time it takes to release new games this year. The main factors leading to this phenomenon include the long-term dominance of classic IPs and popular old games, long-tail effects of premium DLC, price cuts and discounts for old games, and software and hardware compatibility issues. Even so, a few popular new games such as “Black Myths: Goku” and “Jedi Diver 2” performed very well during the year. Looking ahead to the buyout game market led by “GTA6” in 2025 and the release of new multi-platform games led by many well-known domestic game manufacturers, the changes in the game industry in 2025 are still exciting.
Investment suggestions: The leading ecosystem continues to prosper, and high-quality culture and IP are injected into content to enable the development of the game industry. Recommended attention: Tencent Holdings (00700), NetEase (09999), Bilibili-W (09626), Tom Cat (300459.SZ), 37 Entertainment (002555.SZ), Kaiying Network (002517.SZ), Giant Network (002558.SZ), Gbit (603444.SH), Shunwang Technology (300113.SZ), Changshu Technology (300315.SZ), Zhongqingbao (300052.SZ), Shenzhou Taiyue (30052.SZ) 002.SZ), Shanghai Film ( 601595.SH), Glacier Network (300533.SZ), Kuaishou-W (01024), Yao Ji Technology (002605.SZ), etc.
Risk warning: policy volatility, new tourism performance falling short of expectations, risk of macro-environmental fluctuations, etc.