General Gaming Black Myth: Wukong sells 18 million (!) units in two weks

[crispy4000]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

WWW.BLOOMBERG.COM

 

Investor Who Risked It All on ‘Wukong’ Scores Another Sales Win

• China’s biggest PC game reached 18 million sales in two weeks
• Beijing endorsement of ‘Wukong’ seen as positive for industry

 

Wukong was a leap of faith for Daniel Wu, whose little-known Hero Games is the biggest external shareholder in creator Game Science. His startup stuck with its partner through years of flops and contributed a large chunk of the blockbuster title’s $70 million budget over six years of development, an unheard-of undertaking for a Chinese project.

It paid off big time. The action game based on the legend of the Monkey King has outsold industry icons such as Elden Ring and Zelda, at least in its initial spurt. It can reach 30 million sales over its lifetime, augmented with an expansion to come, Wu told Bloomberg News.

[crispy4000]

 

Pent up demand for AAA game from China that isn't F2P.

[Spork3245]

I wonder how many copies the Chinese government bought to boost sales

[Mr.Vic20]

That an nationalist pride. Its a beloved and upheld story in Chinese culture and you can be assured Chinese media did its bit for party and country. 

[Spork3245]

1 minute ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

That an nationalist pride. Its a beloved and upheld story in Chinese culture and you can be assured Chinese media did its bit for party and country. 

 

"Dear populace, we are locking you in this warehouse for the next 3 days to boost player count on Steam for our national video game. We hope to triple all previous player count records for seemingly no reason. Pooh bear loves you"

[Bacon]

One conversation about this game I have been seeing is if these numbers actually count.

 

Some people think, while it's impressive, it doesn't really count because the Chinese audience has never really been there for other games. Sometimes outright excluded from the numbers or the game is banned.

 

Then there is the other side that thinks that is stupid. That it shouldn't matter that the Chinese-made game about a Chinese Fable has a massive Chinese audience and that, "It's all the same." Sales are Sales. Record-breaking numbers are record-breaking numbers. I don't know if this is important, but often, more right-leaning people have this perspective. The Gamergaters, the haters of DEI, the Asmongolds.

 

I feel torn on this personally. Cuz, on the one hand, sales are sales. That's a big true. It is a massively successful game. Hell, even in the rest of the world outside of China this game did really well. But on the other hand, China is often its own separate market. Like the Chinese box office. Or the Chinese version of MMOs. Or consoles specifically made for China.

 

I guess at the end of the day, a good game has sold well. It's a game I'd play DLC for and buy the sequel. I would love to see more from Game Science.

[AbsolutSurgen]

The Chinese market is huge.  Of course it counts.

[Dodger]

Plenty of white people jizzing all over it so it can't all be just Chinese fake news sales

[crispy4000]

@Bacon Good AAA games from China, that aren't riddled with exploitative microtransactions, are a great thing.  Because this game is selling so well, it could open doors.

 

I say the more countries with strong game studios, the better.  Especially those not tied to goons like Ubisoft, who give them an edict to follow their design templates.  Letting foreign studios have their own voice could be a great way to revitalize the AAA industry, which has increasingly played it too safe.

[Best]

Holy shit 

 

[Xbob42]

6 hours ago, Dodger said:

Plenty of white people jizzing all over it so it can't all be just Chinese fake news sales

I dunno about plenty, it seems it did really well in China, ok-ish in the US, and kinda poor everywhere else.

 

 

Presuming those numbers are somewhat accurate and remain the same to this day, that'd be about half a million sales in the US and a lot less elsewhere. Not bad, but nothing amazing either.

 

I think the conversation should be less "does it count" and more "does it matter," at least outside of China. Obviously within China it's a big deal (as far as we can tell) but outside of that country? Hard to say. It could definitely open up the door to less absolute mobile trash (would love to get away from gacha models in every region, cancer games for suckers) but also, the price of the game is about $35-37 or so in yuan, so if we just lazily multiply that by 18 million (even though US sales would add a bit more) we still "only" get about $600-700 million. Which is a lot! But Genshin Impact makes well over double that (and sometimes near triple that) annually, and won't experience a sudden and severe drop-off like a single-player game will after launch, and likely requires a lot less time and effort to produce.

 

As has been the case for a long time now, I'm still amazed actual games get greenlit when they seem so much riskier.

 

Anyway, will be interesting to see where this goes.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Do the Chinese pirate Chinese products? Could the game have like a 100M life time player count? 

[Dodger]

I wouldn’t be so sure genshin is cheaper and easier to maintain. Looks like they have a few thousand devs and spend a good sum to keep the content coming. These GAAS games take a lot to keep going since you need constant updates. Also as we’ve seen, being successful in this space is incredibly hard.

[Xbob42]

52 minutes ago, Dodger said:

I wouldn’t be so sure genshin is cheaper and easier to maintain. 

Less that it's easier to maintain and more that it's likely a lot easier to maintain that with updates instead of going into hiding for 4-7 years and building an entirely new game to a completely unknown response. Like a certain Concord!

 

But yes, it's much more difficult to strike gold, as Concord shows. Maybe if they had big anime titties and gacha bullshit it'd still be running. But my point isn't that this is a good thing so much as it is with how business seems to operate these days ("Risk everything to win everything every single time until your company implodes") I'm surprised more aren't pulling the lever.

[crispy4000]

29 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Less that it's easier to maintain and more that it's likely a lot easier to maintain that with updates instead of going into hiding for 4-7 years and building an entirely new game to a completely unknown response. Like a certain Concord!

At what point in those 4-7 years do you transition off the current game and have a new game to transition to?  That's a challenge that some publishers have clearly navigated better than others.

[Spork3245]

6 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

Do the Chinese pirate Chinese products? Could the game have like a 100M life time player count? 

It has the latest version of Denuvo, no one is pirating this game.

[XxEvil AshxX]

When you consider how many people there are in China, 18 million worldwide is actually pretty poor percentage. C'mon China, you can do better.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

39 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

When you consider how many people there are in China, 18 million worldwide is actually pretty poor percentage. C'mon China, you can do better.

gotta be that missing Xbox release.  

[AbsolutSurgen]

13 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I dunno about plenty, it seems it did really well in China, ok-ish in the US, and kinda poor everywhere else.

 

 

Presuming those numbers are somewhat accurate and remain the same to this day, that'd be about half a million sales in the US and a lot less elsewhere. Not bad, but nothing amazing either.

 

I think the conversation should be less "does it count" and more "does it matter," at least outside of China. Obviously within China it's a big deal (as far as we can tell) but outside of that country? Hard to say. It could definitely open up the door to less absolute mobile trash (would love to get away from gacha models in every region, cancer games for suckers) but also, the price of the game is about $35-37 or so in yuan, so if we just lazily multiply that by 18 million (even though US sales would add a bit more) we still "only" get about $600-700 million. Which is a lot! But Genshin Impact makes well over double that (and sometimes near triple that) annually, and won't experience a sudden and severe drop-off like a single-player game will after launch, and likely requires a lot less time and effort to produce.

 

As has been the case for a long time now, I'm still amazed actual games get greenlit when they seem so much riskier.

 

Anyway, will be interesting to see where this goes.

That graph was posted in the first few hours of release.

It's still overwhelmingly China, but the estimates I have seen but it at 75%-80% China ATM.

 

Journey to the West is a hugely influential piece of fiction in China -- and is largely meaningless to those of us in the West.  It's really not that surprising that a popular IP, combined with nationalistic pride would result in a big sales in China. 

[Keyser_Soze]

28 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Journey to the West is a hugely influential piece of fiction in China -- and is largely meaningless to those of us in the West.  I

 

Spoken like someone who has never seen The Forbidden Kingdom

[AbsolutSurgen]

10 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Spoken like someone who has never seen The Forbidden Kingdom

I've played Enslaved:  Odyssey to the West.  Does that count? 

[Keyser_Soze]

12 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I've played Enslaved:  Odyssey to the West.  Does that count? 

 

Never played it despite owning it numerous times but I'll say... yes?

[Xbob42]

7 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

That graph was posted in the first few hours of release.

It's still overwhelmingly China, but the estimates I have seen but it at 75%-80% China ATM.

I mean, like 5% of the reviews are in English, and the US is expected to be the second biggest market after China for this game, and multiple nations speak English... Obviously reviews don't translate perfectly, but I can't imagine non-Chinese numbers being incredibly high. Certainly nowhere near 25%!

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

[Xbob42]

17 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

[skillzdadirecta]

9 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Spoken like someone who has never seen The Forbidden Kingdom

Or watched DBZ.

[AbsolutSurgen]

6 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Or watched DBZ.

DBZ?

[SuperSpreader]

American companies have failed to realize that different markets want games about their own cultures. They keep trying to feed them American products with a Chinese lantern or with Day of the Dead loot drops.

[tgo]

Maybe the Chinese basically forced the game to be successful.  Kind of take a much needed w for something that is actually great.  Looking forward to trying this out eventually 

[Keyser_Soze]

5 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

DBZ?

 

Dat Boy Zedd

 

It's about a monkey man who is super powered and throws fireballs.

[Xbob42]

3 hours ago, SuperSpreader said:

American companies have failed to realize that different markets want games about their own cultures. They keep trying to feed them American products with a Chinese lantern or with Day of the Dead loot drops.

It is absolutely not the responsibility of any market to make games for the culture of another market, lol.

[Spork3245]

6 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Dat Boy Zedd

 

It's about a monkey man who is super powered and throws fireballs.

Clearly a Detective Conan guy

[BloodyHell]

So is this a soulslike, or a character action game? 

[Bacon]

53 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

So is this a soulslike, or a character action game? 

Yes

[Best]

2 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

So is this a soulslike, or a character action game? 

 

Tbh it's a game I'd think you would enjoy.