Navigating Through Turbulence
“I joined FunPlus in early 2021, as the world was still grappling with the impact of the global pandemic. Like many gaming companies, FunPlus saw a surge in playtime, revenues, and growth during this period. But the highs were followed by significant challenges. Leading up to this period, unprecedented amounts of capital had been flowing in and around the gaming ecosystem. This led to extremely lofty valuations across the spectrum of start-ups to public companies, and this wave of growth and capital created a false sense of security in our industry.
In turn, this led to an oversaturation of games, declining innovation, and an overreliance on “business as usual” models. The industry as a whole was reaching increasing levels of maturity and also facing an increasing share of time and share of wallet competition from other consumer-facing products and services (social platforms, short-form video, and user-generated content, to name a few). And admittedly, FunPlus was not immune to these factors.
As the year went on, a number of overlapping events materialized, which together exposed even more clearly the over-saturation and lack of innovation trends I mentioned earlier. Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency (ATT) in 2021, followed by global macroeconomic shifts, including the invasion of Ukraine and the end of the zero-interest rate era, changed the landscape dramatically. These external shocks exposed broader issues in the industry.
We learned some hard but valuable lessons during this time. One of them? Being great at everything is nearly impossible. When I joined, we had multiple studios experimenting with genres outside our core expertise—Match-3, Home Decor, Poker, Hybrid Casual, etc. Despite the talent and effort behind them, these titles didn’t meet our expectations. We’ve since doubled down on our strengths, focusing on strategy games and original IPs, leveraging our proven expertise from studios in China and our newest hub in Lisbon.”
