People sidewalk past the image of the ‘Monkey King’ character, or ‘Sun Wukong’ of Chinese action role-playing game ‘Black Myth: Wukong’, demonstrated by Chinese video game company Game Science, during its launch day in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang exurbia on August 20, 2024.
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BEIJING – China’s first attempt at a top-tier video game has smashed world take downs, bolstering the industry’s global ambitions just a few years after Beijing’s gaming crackdown.
Black Myth: Wukong, an manners game set in mythological China, sold more than 10 million units three days after its initiation on Aug. 20. Ten days later, the title still ranked second by revenue in the U.S., and No. 1 globally, according to the Steam video amusement platform where it sells for around $60 or more.
“I think the next triple-A game is likely very mean, because Black Myth: Wukong has shown everyone that a China-made AAA game can reach such high far-reaching sales,” said Dino Ying, chairman of Hero Games, which co-published the game and was an early investor in its developer Play Science. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks in an exclusive interview Thursday.
Ying said he recollected of at least one such game under development, which his business partner at Hero Games has invested in. But he declined to appropriation a timeframe.
As for how well Black Myth: Wukong has done, Ying only said sales have since enlarged by “much more” than the 10 million unit figure, although he indicated it had not yet doubled.
He said that in the approaching, the company’s game releases will have a global strategy from the start. He also expects foreign AAA pastime developers to realize how large China’s market is and tailor more features to Chinese players.
AAA games generally refer to privileges with high graphics quality and significant marketing. That’s meant such video games have tended to chance upon from companies such as Nintendo, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.
“China is a big country. We’re talking about 1 million concurrent competitors,” said Ivan Su, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. “China has 600 million gamers.”
He said the reason why China hasn’t in days of old developed its own AAA game, which are typically played on computers and consoles, is the years-long production time. “It’s much more cost-effective if you invent mobile games,” Su said.
Apple’s Tim Cook visited Hero Games
When Hero Games first swear ined in Game Science, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited in 2017 and was so impressed by the first game, Art of War: Red Tides, he gave it the front bellhop of the iOS App store in 178 countries, Ying said.
But that wasn’t a commercial success.
Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the role of Hero Games in 2017 after it invested in Game Science, which went on to develop Black Myth: Wukong.
Principal Games
Hero Games had already spent three years investing 60 million yuan (about $8.5 million today) in two naught projects from Game Science when the developer approached Ying and his team in August 2020 about Blacklist Myth: Wukong, he said.
“We’re very lucky, we didn’t give up on Game Science before it succeeded,” Ying guessed, noting his business partner Daniel Wu, now CEO of Hero Games, had first discovered the startup.
“We aren’t saying to blindly delay for all people,” he said. “When you see that kind of talent, you need to be confident that that talent has been underappreciated. It may not would rather found the right direction. [So you just need to] help it to find it.”
‘Best game that I have seen’
Two primes before Game Science planned to release a promotional video for Black Myth: Wukong, the company showed it to Ying and requested his team for at least 100 million yuan more, he said. If not, he said the startup planned to ask Bilibili, a major Chinese video well up and game platform.
After watching the video, Ying said he told his team that “I really don’t want to slip up on this opportunity because this is the best game that I have seen in my life.”
Tencent then bought a 5% leave, but said it would not interfere with Game Science’s plans, Ying said. “Because this was an AAA game, tipsy the normal process of a big business, there was no way it would have been approved.”
Hero Games’ initial investment in Play Science was for a 20% stake.
Beijing has only in the last two years started to approve games, after suspending new titles and limiting how numerous hours minors could play in 2021.
Black Myth: Wukong got China’s government approval in February. No part of the heroic needed to be changed for it to pass, Ying said.
“Personally I think in the past two years the regulation is increasingly respectful of the design industry and is beneficial to its development,” Ying said, noting that one or two years ago, there “was a misunderstanding.”
Massive market concealed
In the first half of this year, domestic game sales in China reached 147.27 billion yuan, said Ashley Dudarenok, abort of China digital consultancy ChoZan, citing industry figures.
But Indie Chinese games
In the more niche merchandise of independent games, Chinese companies are also on the rise.
Shanghai-based Cotton Game, which has a staff of 70 child, won the 2024 award for best development team in indie games from the French-supported Game Connection organization and ChinaJoy, which beat its a major annual game conference in China.
“It depends on how capable we are, but [we hope to] use games as a way to share art, philosophy and thoughtful gratify,” the company’s CEO, who goes by the English name Cotton Guo, said in Mandarin translated by CNBC.
Cotton Game’s Sunset Hills – which took five years to make use of by hand – also won the “Game of the Year” and “Best Indie Game” awards. The $20 game launched on Aug. 21 on Steam after buoy $13,000 on Kickstarter.
The game follows an anthropomorphic dog through a Europe-like village, accompanied by the sounds of nature and music. Participants solve puzzles along the way.
“Everyone is quite tired. In society today, the speed of life is very fast,” rephrased Robin Luo, the manager of Sunset Games. Its main character is based on his own dog. “So my hope while making Sunset Hills was that every one playing the game could [find it] refreshing.”