熊貓電視

2022年5月7日,

虎牙和鬥魚的裁員是對中國遊戲巨頭騰訊的又一次打擊，騰訊持有這兩家公司的多數股權。中國領先的遊戲流媒體平台鬥魚和虎牙進行了大規模裁員，加入了在中國經濟放緩期間削減業務的一係列中國互聯網公司的行列。虎牙的裁員主要針對其國際業務部門，該部門約70%的員工被裁員。該公司於2018年推出的Nimo TV部門是虎牙的國際版，該部門受到的打擊最為嚴重，已經實施了大規模裁員。虎牙還計劃削減20%的國內業務，專注於雲遊戲等新業務。虎牙發言人表示:“考慮到快速變化的商業環境，尼莫TV已經對業務進行了一些戰略調整和優化，並將在未來將資源配置到重點地區。”在買買上，幾名身份不明的虎牙員工說，在收到正式通知後，他們被告知立即離開。在中國，如果企業因重組或其他精簡措施而計劃解雇20名以上的員工，必須提前一個月發出通知，這給了員工尋找新工作的時間。中國媒體《科技工廠》(Tech Plant)援引知情人士的話說，中國最大的視頻流媒體平台抖音最近開始裁員30%，多個部門受到影響，包括上海、北京和武漢辦公室的遊戲和直播業務開發。鬥魚在解釋這一舉措背後的原因時表示，這隻是他們正常的人力資源優化的一部分。 The layoffs came against the backdrop that Chinese regulators have ramped up scrutiny of the live streaming industry, and Tencent shut its in-house video game streaming arm Penguin Esports this month. Since last year, China's live-streaming sector has been dealing with a tighter regulatory landscape as the country's regulators vowed to clean up irregular activities and chaos in the sector. In August 2021, China's Ministry of Commerce outlined proposals for an industry standard for the live-streaming industry. The authority detailed the guidance about how live-streamers should dress or speak in front of the camera. Layoffs at Huya and Douyu are another blow for Chinese gaming giant Tencent, which holds majority stakes in both companies. In July 2021, The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) blocked a merger deal between Huya and Douyu in July 2021 to avoid the monopoly of Tencent in the game streaming market. Panda TV's failure makes way for Tencent to dominate live streaming. Panda TV, owned by the flamboyant son of one of China's richest men Wang Jianlin, had ended its service after failing to raise fresh funds to support its operation in March 2019. Since Panda TV's failure, China's game-streaming market has been dominated by Tencent, which also controls many other aspects of China's game-streaming industry, such as e-sports. In addition to investing in Douyu and Huya, Tencent launched its self-developed game live-streaming platform eGame in July 2016. Tencent has made a heavy investment in many aspects of the game live streaming and esports business, importing foreign online games titles to China, hosting gaming championship events, and acquiring game streaming platforms that broadcast the events. Heavy investments in game live-streaming and esports businesses have bolstered Tencent's revenue from games such as its League of Legends because broadcasting LOL championship events generates high attention for its games. Huya and Douyu's revenue stream are highly dependent on its users, who buy virtual gifts ranging from toy rockets to fish ball to reward their favorite streamers. However, the number of paying users and monthly active users on Huya and Douyu saw flat growth in the past year, mainly driven by a tighter regulation on the live-streaming platform and the rising challenge brought by short videos. Huya and Douyu's layoffs followed similar moves by other Chinese tech giants, including Alibaba and Tencent, which have laid off tens of thousands of employees combined this year to scale back business operations. Chinese media reported that Alibaba and Tencent would cut 10-15% of their workforce separately this year in their biggest rounds of layoffs as they tried to deal with declining revenue due to the economic slowdown and Covid-19 outbreak. Last week, Chinese social media and e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu reportedly cut roughly 10% of its workforce as part of its business restructuring efforts.