That's less than I would've thought 😲 They must've broken even pretty quick
Black Myth: Wukong has sold 10m copies, 3m peak CCU all platforms
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I believe the women both inside and outside of this forum are well within their rights to voice their frustration about a game like this having a platform and seeing success, despite the critique given. I hope women in China can do what they can to highlight the misogynistic culture without risk of being shunned or worse, because I genuinely do not believe anyone beyond the language and culture barrier can do much from the outside beyond critique. Critique cannot just stop and end there -- action must be taken, and that can only really happen if that action is led by someone involved in that culture.
I'm not particularly interested in this game, moreso interested in seeing how games developed outside of the western/east asia sphere of dominance do in a global market. I don't necessarily believe that creatives in China who work on games are inherently misogynistic as victims of their culture though - saw a comment in here that read like that to me - so, like with cases in the west and east asia, it's a case-by-case basis.
this is the post I was referring to. It's probably not that poster's intention to make it sound like that, but it comes off to me as sinophobic.
I think there should be a stronger conversation in this forum about the media we consume, who it's funded by, who actually works on those projects (and completely eliminate the single person/auteur bullshit that plagues a lot of game discussions -- ESPECIALLY Japanese projects.). The sooner we can be divorced from the PR and marketing cycle of the publishers that fund these projects, the better. So I appreciate games sites like IGN, Aftermath, Kotaku for putting aside that sort of relationship for the sake of these reports.
I'm not particularly interested in this game, moreso interested in seeing how games developed outside of the western/east asia sphere of dominance do in a global market. I don't necessarily believe that creatives in China who work on games are inherently misogynistic as victims of their culture though - saw a comment in here that read like that to me - so, like with cases in the west and east asia, it's a case-by-case basis.
this is the post I was referring to. It's probably not that poster's intention to make it sound like that, but it comes off to me as sinophobic.
I think there should be a stronger conversation in this forum about the media we consume, who it's funded by, who actually works on those projects (and completely eliminate the single person/auteur bullshit that plagues a lot of game discussions -- ESPECIALLY Japanese projects.). The sooner we can be divorced from the PR and marketing cycle of the publishers that fund these projects, the better. So I appreciate games sites like IGN, Aftermath, Kotaku for putting aside that sort of relationship for the sake of these reports.
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This makes the accomplishment even crazier.
Huge potential and a huge market, yeah, but this feels like a unique case.
Yup this is bummer news for Friday. Looks like hate won again.
Trying to pivot into the Chinese market is silly unless you're going to make like a Kobe Bryant game. There are so few outside things that have gained any type of notoriety in China. They mostly just prefer their own things. Which makes sense when you consider like the last 100 years of China
Yeah, another thing to look at is Steam reviews (roughly 96% of reviews are written in Chinese language, either simplified or tranditional), and wegame of course would consist of 100% players from China.
Their taste leans much more closer to the Japanese than the West. The Naruto gacha is still doing very well there.
How can anyone be surprised by this?
We saw it hit over 2m CCU on its first day of release. People say if you have 1m CCU you are easily over 5 to 7 million copies sold.
Also, yeah this is a big deal in China almost all of Asia really. It is using a beloved story and seems to be hitting all the right boxes other than two of the co-founders of the dev team being shitty.
We saw it hit over 2m CCU on its first day of release. People say if you have 1m CCU you are easily over 5 to 7 million copies sold.
Also, yeah this is a big deal in China almost all of Asia really. It is using a beloved story and seems to be hitting all the right boxes other than two of the co-founders of the dev team being shitty.
A fight against windmills, but thank you!
Love your name! One of my favourite shows ever!
The truth is "Concurrent User" stats on Steam literally free marketing or more snowball marketing word of mouth.
Mixed feelings. The devs are awful people it seems, but the game is legitimately good. Feels like Sekiro DBZ.
...and what if you source Chinese mythology instead of forcing other cultures into a game you're targeting at them?
If you have a moral problem with funding the devs, can't you buy the game through a CD key shop that doesn't directly benefit the devs, or something like that? That's what I did anyway.
China is a sleeping giant when it comes to this kind of AAA production. Wukong is an outstanding production, and I can not wait to see what other chinese teams will produce, once they'll be given the proper funds, and the time that goes with...
User banned (1 month): Dismissing concerns around misogyny. Account in junior phase.
It's a shame about the shitty views of their PR department or whoever sent out that email, but let's not paint the efforts of an entire studio as summed by an email that almost certainly someone entirely uninvolved with the core game development itself authored.
I love to see a good game attain a deserved amount of sales and success.
I'm curious, since you mention Stellar Blade.
How much blame does SIE receive as the game's publisher?
Since we're all in on ethics discussions now. Because didn't they also "reward" Shift Up?
That's not taking the high ground. Taking the high ground is simply not touching the game. At all. Period.
It's 2 of the 4 founder, the current CEO and Art director that is responsible for the dark fantasy style.
Holy shit especially for what is primarily a PC release.
They at least seem to like Steam games. The ownership % for many games is pretty high, particularily for japanese ones. And by pretty high i mean bigger than US%
I think that's why you invest in/partner with Chinese developers instead of trying to make games that appeal to China with devs from outside. They know the market better than anyone.
OP
OP
Journey to Success: Black Myth Wukong Breaks Records on Day One
Journey to Success: Black Myth Wukong Breaks Records on Day One Black Myth: Wukong, an action RPG developed by Chinese studio Game Science, has had an extremely successful launch following its release on August 20, 2024, for PC and PS5. The high sales, particularly within China, reflect the...
nikopartners.com
To touch on the discussion about the devs being misogynistic and people still buying the game in spite for that: I don't think anyone is expecting all 10+ million people to be familiar with the issues surrounding the studio. None of us can be have 100% complete knowledge about every little thing involved in the products we buy, and many of us won't go digging for info either, as that would quite frankly be an exhausting endeavour to do so.
However, if you are someone who's cognizant of the issues and are affected or otherwise disappointed by them, it's no surprise this news isn't great to hear, especially when a lot of people will get defensive or use whataboutism to excuse it (or just straight up lies), instead of just playing the game while acknowledging that the issues still exist.
Like, I'm no saint, I've played several games with problematic content and/or developers, even when I was aware of such before playing the games. I love Atlus games for example, will still criticise all the less than savoury shit in them, but I'm still going to play them. But seeing people simply not owing up to something having issues or excusing them is just tiring. You don't have to care, go ahead and play your game and have fun, but don't diminish or finger wag people that do care.
There's not a ton we can do as individuals to really influence the world around us, but not buying a game is a pretty small task. In fact, it involves doing literally nothing at all, so don't get offended if people judge you or are disappointed in you for purchasing the game. If you're going to begrudge and belittle people reminding you of the issues anyway, don't act like you're somehow above judgement yourself, that's just being human. The fact of the matter is, things like misogyny are far more serious issues than you wanting to play a game guilt or judgement free. You can always just play the game, have fun, not be weird/defensive about it, and/or just ignore all the posts criticising it if it makes you feel so uncomfortable.
On topic - Very impressive sales numbers, but I'm not too surprised given how hyped I've heard this game is in China, and how big Journey to the West is.
However, if you are someone who's cognizant of the issues and are affected or otherwise disappointed by them, it's no surprise this news isn't great to hear, especially when a lot of people will get defensive or use whataboutism to excuse it (or just straight up lies), instead of just playing the game while acknowledging that the issues still exist.
Like, I'm no saint, I've played several games with problematic content and/or developers, even when I was aware of such before playing the games. I love Atlus games for example, will still criticise all the less than savoury shit in them, but I'm still going to play them. But seeing people simply not owing up to something having issues or excusing them is just tiring. You don't have to care, go ahead and play your game and have fun, but don't diminish or finger wag people that do care.
There's not a ton we can do as individuals to really influence the world around us, but not buying a game is a pretty small task. In fact, it involves doing literally nothing at all, so don't get offended if people judge you or are disappointed in you for purchasing the game. If you're going to begrudge and belittle people reminding you of the issues anyway, don't act like you're somehow above judgement yourself, that's just being human. The fact of the matter is, things like misogyny are far more serious issues than you wanting to play a game guilt or judgement free. You can always just play the game, have fun, not be weird/defensive about it, and/or just ignore all the posts criticising it if it makes you feel so uncomfortable.
On topic - Very impressive sales numbers, but I'm not too surprised given how hyped I've heard this game is in China, and how big Journey to the West is.
User banned (1 month): Dismissing concerns around misogyny
Because that's just what happens here. The Stellar Blade, Kingdom Come, and HP threads always look exactly the same.
Those keys still have to come from somewhere.
Only way to avoid giving the devs more money is to buy used; but you can't do that in this case.
Agreed. I hate when the thought is just replicate x to have the same outcome as y.
It doesn't work like that with something like this.
Wukong is unique, your favorite developer isn't going to "copy" and put their own unique spin on it and have the same success.
This is simply not true, Chinese users buy all sort of games. They're not some mindless hives who only like their own thing. You can check some random games on Steam and filter by review language. Here's a few example, I pick Japanese games because the audience tend to lean toward these games:
Granblue Fantasy Relink
All language: 40k reviews
Chinese: 24k reviews
Monster Hunter Rise
All language: 100k reviews
Chinese: 35k reviews
Final Fantasy VIIR
All language: 28k reviews
Chinese: 9k reviews
There's more than just homegrown games that they like, even just simply shoving Chinese mythology wouldn't work. We've had a bunch of Chinese-ass Chinese games in the past few years, and they didn't get even the fraction of this game's success. Some examples are Gujian 3, Xuan Yuan Sword 7, as well as Sword and Fairy 7, which are very popular & long-running series in China. They only had like 10-15k concurrent users at their peak.
Quite a couple yachts, actually. Let's assume a decent large yacht goes for 10 million dollars, and that 70% of sales are on PC. That's 420 million in revenue (before tax), and of that 126 million goes to Valve. After VAT, it should still be over 100 million, so a small fleet right there.
The rotten apples argument never works. If the studio doesn't do anything against them then they are to blame for that too. And in many cases higher ups that are heavily involved are the biggest problem.
Alien Romulus did shockingly well at the China box office.
Get a China game studio on a new Alien game STAT
Get a China game studio on a new Alien game STAT
Think it will be close to impossible for the anyone to do anything against them considering it is two of the co-founders that are the problem.
Regular devs will probably be fearful of speaking out, especially after this run away success. Plus this is now a thing of national pride in China, how do you even fight that?
I don't know what you expect a standard everyday developer to do against a CEO that isn't a good person. Thats what people are saying, the higher ups may be bad, but its the developers below them who are normal that do the work, and also suffer the consequences if the game doesn't sell well, since layoffs come for them first.
You misunderstand me. Either it's low level people that are easily to deal with ot it's higher ups that are so involved with everything that you can't just handwave it away like t hat.
In no way was what I posted meant as sinophobia. I don't even see how you can read that into what I said. I'm specifically calling this developer shit, I would say the same about them if they were from my country. Using them as an inspiration/foundation for future developers is what I would call a shit foundation.
I apologize that it came across that way to you but truly it was not my intention.
If they're a turnoff why buy it? Paying less doesn't change that fact. Even for a dollar I wouldn't buy something that turns me off. Not this game specifically, just in general.
don't forget PUBG.
Lower. The game is also on WeGame.
HP is outrigth banned here because the money used on the IP goes to fund transphobic policies. It's not "one bad person at the studio" for any of those