In August 2025, IDREAMSKY delivered an interim report that appeared contradictory yet meaningful. The financial results showed that the company's revenue for the first half of the year was 686 million yuan, down 18.9% year-on-year, but successfully achieved a net profit of 32.95 million yuan, turning from loss to profit. More notably, the company's operating cash flow net inflow reached 57.86 million yuan, up 71.2% year-on-year.
This divergent phenomenon of "declining revenue, rising profit" reflects IDREAMSKY's five-year strategic adjustment and deep transformation. The outstanding performance of the company's self-developed 2D shooting game "Carla Pico" on PC, along with the mobile version planned for October launch, will be key factors determining whether IDREAMSKY can sustain profitability.
IDREAMSKY's financial data for the first half of 2025 presents a seemingly contradictory yet rational phenomenon. The company's revenue decline of 18.9% stems from two main reasons: first, "All-Star of Honor" entered the mid-to-late stage of its lifecycle, leading to natural revenue decline; second, the company proactively reduced advertising placements, preferring to sacrifice some advertising revenue to enhance player experience.
The profit improvement comes from strict cost control and increased profit margins from new products. The company's sales and marketing expenses rose 39.4% year-on-year to 108.4 million yuan, mainly due to increased market promotion for "Carla Pico's" overseas PC version and the newly launched game "Legendary Shop: Management & Crafting" at the beginning of the year.
Meanwhile, R&D expenses decreased 68.2% year-on-year to 48.7 million yuan, primarily due to reduced R&D investment as "Carla Pico's" development gradually improved, and AI technology applications enhanced R&D efficiency.
"Carla Pico," as the core product of IDREAMSKY's strategic transformation, indeed shows impressive performance. In the first half of 2025, the game's PC monthly active users increased 9.9%, revenue surged 74.8%, with payment rates and average revenue per monthly active user rising 23.2% and 59% respectively.
The game's success stems from its differentiated positioning. It adopts a unique combination of "2D anime + shooting," combining exquisite Japanese anime art style with innovative "stringification" gameplay (allowing characters to freely switch between 2D and 3D), carving out a blue ocean track in the highly competitive shooting game market.
In international markets, "Carla Pico" has also achieved good results. After the PC version launch, it topped Steam's new releases and popular free games charts, and remained in the top ten of Steam Japan's weekly bestseller charts for four consecutive weeks.
IDREAMSKY has developed a comprehensive multi-platform development and globalization strategy for "Carla Pico." The game adopts a "PC first, then mobile; domestic first, then overseas" launch path, with the ultimate goal of becoming a multi-platform product across PC, console, and mobile.
The company particularly emphasizes Middle East market development, not only establishing a Middle East business headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but also building partnerships with multiple local esports and gaming platforms. In August 2024, "Carla Pico" became one of the competition events in the Saudi Esports World Cup, significantly enhancing the product's global visibility.
This globalization strategy has shown initial success. After "Carla Pico's" international PC version launched in 2024, it garnered a large number of loyal users in Japan, Europe, and America, with seasonal update versions consistently ranking in the top ten of Steam Japan's weekly bestseller charts.
Despite current good performance, "Carla Pico" and IDREAMSKY still face numerous challenges. Competition in the mobile game market is extremely fierce, with established players like "PUBG Mobile" and "Call of Duty Mobile" already occupying important positions.
Steam platform data also reveals some concerns. "Carla Pico's" online player count has declined from a peak of 38,000 to around 4,000 currently, exposing shortcomings in content iteration and retention strategies.
IDREAMSKY itself recognizes risks in strategic adjustment. Company CEO Chen Xiangyu reflected: "Strategically, we started investing in new businesses without deep thinking, doing too many opportunity-driven things while doing too few certainty-focused items; organizationally, the company hasn't formed organizational capabilities to execute."
Company management holds high expectations for the mobile version, planning to begin large-scale marketing efforts in September. CEO Chen Xiangyu believes: "The mobile game launch will definitely bring new growth points to IDREAMSKY's performance."
From industry patterns, when a PC game is adapted to mobile, the user base typically expands significantly. High smartphone penetration and mobile gaming convenience can attract many non-traditional players, such as female and casual user groups.
IDREAMSKY's interim performance reflects structural changes in China's gaming industry: the era of extensive growth has ended, with refined development, high efficiency, and globalization becoming new keywords.
The launch performance of "Carla Pico's" mobile version will determine whether IDREAMSKY can truly emerge from its transformation difficulties. Success would prove the company has found a suitable development path; failure might mean needing to reassess strategic direction again.
In the gaming industry full of variables, IDREAMSKY's turnaround to profitability is only a new starting point, not an endpoint. Its future performance still requires validation from both market and time.