In recent years, Hangzhou has set its eyes on the cultural creativity industry. It has taken its advantages in the mobile Internet to build a diversified industrial pattern and platform and promulgate policies, and has attracted increasingly more famous businesses.
The 14th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival held in the first half of this year was attended by more than 2,641 Chinese and foreign businesses, 5,760 exhibitors and professionals from 85 countries and regions. The number of participating countries and regions hit a record high again. MIPCHINA came to Hangzhou again to promote Sino-foreign animation industry cooperation. The rapid rise of Hangzhou animation companies, with exquisite works of excellence, has endowed the "capital of animation" with a more profound connotation.
In the first half of 2018, Hangzhou animation game industry continued to make steady progress as it maintained the momentum of 2017. The trend of cross-border integration of industries is more obvious, the industrial forms are more diversified, and product types are richer. Hangzhou animation game companies have further responded to the "Belt and Road" Initiative and implemented the "animation going global" strategy. The animation companies are aiming to create high-quality products, while the game companies are seizing the e-sports industry development dividend, greatly improving the product quality, effectively stimulating the market vitality, and constantly releasing the industrial potentials, achieving marked results in industry transformation and upgrading. Hangzhou animation game industry has gradually entered the new era of cross-business format, cross-media, cross-industry integration and development, which takes building quality products as the core, the animation festival as the platform, and the new media as the carrier.
By June 2018, Hangzhou had 30 animation game companies recognized as national level animation businesses (by Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Finance, General Administration of Taxation), ranking first in the province and in the forefront of the country in quantity. It has formed industrial agglomeration, with one (Hangzhou Electronic Soul Network Technology) listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, one (Hangzhou Shunwang Technology) in Shenzhen Stock Exchange, one （SKKY ）in NASDAQ, and many (Yowang Network, Zoland, Joicy Studio, NGames, Phone Pad Games, TBZ, Qishun Technology, ZDJoys) in the New Third Board.
In the first half of this year, the 14th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival was successfully held, reaching a record high in benefit, output value, and at internationalized level. According to statistics, more than 2,641 Chinese and foreign companies and 5,760 exhibitors and professional audience from 85 countries and regions participated in the animation festival, and 1.4335 million people attended the animation festival activities, which included 362,800 in the main venue activities. The number of single-day visitors reached a new high of 111,000.
The second session MIP·China continued to hold in Hangzhou, opening up a new path for excellent animation works of the city and the country at large to go global. Statistics showed that 506 Chinese and foreign representatives from 145 film and television production organizations attended the forum. During the period, 39 international companies from 18 countries and regions, including the United States, Britain and Japan, held 796 one-to-one precision talks with 52 Chinese film and TV animation companies, reaching 150 intentions of cooperation at the scene. Warner Bros, one of the world's largest film and television entertainment companies, and Viacom, the third largest media company in the United States, joined the second session of MIP CHINA. They shared valuable experience to domestic animation, film and television companies, conducted exchanges and negotiations, and sought opportunities for cooperation.
Highlight strength of city of animation
By the end of June, Hangzhou animation and game enterprises produced 551 episodes of animation series totaling 7,293 minutes, six animated films, 73 animation works issued for 2.12 million copies, and over 300 game products, worth 18.882 billion yuan in output value. The animation output value amounted to 124 million yuan, and 2.068 billion yuan was paid in tax, a steady rise over the same period of last year.
Strong “Capital of E-sports” atmosphere
In the first six months, the game output value of Hangzhou animation game companies reached 11.758 billion yuan, showing a high momentum and strength.
Such rapid growth was attributed to the policy guidance and incentives of Hangzhou government for the animation game industry in recent years. In 2017, Hangzhou Electronic Soul Network Technology went public in Shanghai Stock Exchanges, Hangzhou Shunwang Technology was listed in the Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, Bianfeng and Changtang Network won over 100 milion yuan profits. With over 10 billion yuan profit, NetEase ranked the second in the country, after Tencent, and third in the world in profits. Driven by the booming game industry, Hangzhou's e-sports industry, based on online games, has also developed rapidly. For instance, Hangzhou Shunwang Technology, Hangzhou Electronic Soul Network Technology, Wangjing Network Technology and other game companies have started to foster their own game teams. The renowned game team LGD has settled in Hangzhou.
E-sports has officially become a competition event of Hangzhou Asian Games in 2022, a catalyst for the boom of Hangzhou's e-sports industry. Hangzhou governments at all levels, and enterprises have begun to build e-sports industrial clusters in a planned way. They have started to construct two e-sports town in Xiacheng District and Yuhang District respectively (Ocean Blue•International E-sports Digital Entertainment Centre and China Leyou Town). As one of the first China (Hangzhou) E-sports Digital Entertainment Town projects, Ocean Blue•International E-sports Digital Entertainment Centre opened an LGD e-sports film and television cultural center complex covering a floor space of 17,000 square meters. To date, the e-sports town has covered the fields of film and television production, network technology, game development and e-sports digital entertainment.
Eaglet Project promotes SMEs to soar
Starting in July 2018, Hangzhou Animation Festival Office officially launched the Eaglet Project for animation game businesses in the city. Through field researches and visits by relevant functional departments, industry experts and news media, it has found out a number of emerging SMEs and key projects with market prospects and development potentials. They visited the businesses and offered best services. Through support, guidance, incubation and cultivation, they have further formed a strong driving force for the development of Hangzhou animation game industry.
The excellent Hangzhou animation game companies, with growth potentials and explosive capacities, will provide steady impetus and thriving atmosphere for the development of Hangzhou animation and game industry through solving key problems, launching project researches and taking efforts of media publicity.
