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On August 20, the domestic 3A game "Black Myth: Wukong》 is officially launched, and the official sales channel revealed that the physical collector's edition has been sold out. The hot sales data released by Steam shows that "Black Myth: Wukong" has topped the sales in China in the week from August 6 to August 13. According to the domestic game sales chart data, from the start of pre-orders to July 13, the game's sales reached 1.2 million, with sales of nearly 400 million yuan.

As a 3A masterpiece, Feng Ji, the founder of Game Science, previously revealed in an interview that the development cost of Black Myth: Wukong is about 15 million to 20 million yuan per player per hour. The team estimated that the overall game time will reach more than 15 hours, while the actual development time is more than 1.5 times this time. If calculated in this way, the development cost is at least 400 million yuan. Compared with the current sales, Black Myth: Wukong may have paid for itself.

At the same time, according to industrial and commercial information, the game production company Shenzhen Youke Interactive Technology Co., Ltd. has successfully registered multiple "Black Myth Jiang Ziya" and "Black Myth Zhong Kui" trademarks. It was previously reported that these are the last two parts of the "Black Myth" trilogy. An industry insider said that this game has no "substitute" that can match it in China, and "from the perspective of game type, the game can be expected to sell 10 million copies. 

The physical version is sold out, and "Monkey King" drives the capital market to heat up 

Black Myth is a one-time purchase game, which is currently available on WeGame, Steam, and Epic. The game is available in two versions: the digital standard version and the digital deluxe version, priced at 268 yuan and 328 yuan respectively, and the DLC deluxe upgrade package is priced at 60 yuan. The game was opened for pre-order in June this year, and it was confirmed that it would be officially launched on August 20. On the night of August 19, the night before the launch, Black Myth topped the best-selling list in many countries around the world on the Steam platform.

The official website of Black Myth: Wukong shows that the game has four versions, namely the digital standard version priced at 268 yuan, the digital deluxe version priced at 328 yuan, the physical deluxe version priced at 820 yuan, and the physical collector's version priced at 1,998 yuan. According to official sales channels, the physical versions are currently sold out.

In addition to attracting enthusiastic players, the popularity of the game was also quickly transmitted to the capital market. Related concept stocks such as Huayi Brothers, Zhejiang Publishing Group, and CITIC Publishing rose one after another, and responded to the relationship between the company and the game on the investor interaction platform.

Huayi Brothers recently stated on an investor interaction platform that the company holds a 5.17% stake in Hero Entertainment, which is an early investor in Game Science, the developer of "Black Myth: Wukong".

Zhejiang Publishing Group Digital Media Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the company, also stated on the interactive platform that it is the publisher of the game "Black Myth: Wukong", responsible for game content review, publication application and publication number application. Choice data shows that Zhejiang Publishing Group Digital Media has accumulated a growth of about 20% so far this year. The highest point of the stock price this year was on June 12, which was the third day of the pre-sale of "Black Myth: Wukong". Previously, when "Black Myth: Wukong" was approved for the domestic game version number in February, Zhejiang Publishing Group Digital Media ushered in a wave of price increases.

In addition to the game, CITIC Publishing will also participate in the publication of the Black Myth: Wukong setting collection. Game setting collections generally contain detailed information such as the background story of the game world, character design, item settings, scene descriptions, etc., and have collection value. Considering the extremely high performance of Black Myth: Wukong in art, institutional sources expect that the rising popularity of the game will also drive the sales growth of peripheral products.

The first AAA game in China? Burning 15 million per hour 

Many players pointed out that Black Myth: Wukong demonstrates the high production level of the latest generation of 3A games in China, and is the first large-scale 3A game in China. Regarding the labels of Black Myth: Wukong, such as 3A, national style, and cultural export, Feng Ji, the producer of Black Myth: Wukong, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that good content products should naturally impress the local cultural groups first, and if its quality is high enough, it will naturally radiate overseas. At the same time, he bluntly said that "the national style label is not a free pass."

Regardless of the overseas distribution of traditional Chinese culture and culture, the 3A label alone has already established the "money burning" of Black Myth: Wukong. There are many interpretations of the definition of 3A games in the market, generally referring to three A lots of: money, resources, and time. There is also a saying that "1 A equals 20 million US dollars", but there is no real clear definition. Players generally understand 3A as a traditional console/stand-alone game that is mainly based on a buyout system, with highly realistic art, leading technology, and rich main game content (usually more than 20 hours).

From a literal meaning, 3A at least means big production, which is inseparable from huge capital investment. Previously, Feng Ji, the founder of Game Science, revealed in an interview that the development cost of "Black Myth: Wukong" is about 15 million to 20 million yuan per hour of player experience. The team estimated that the overall game time will reach more than 15 hours, and the actual development time is more than 1.5 times this time. Based on this benchmark, the development cost will be at least 400 million yuan.

As a one-time purchase game, the current price of Black Myth: Wukong on Steam in China is 268 RMB (standard version), and the price of the digital deluxe version is 328 RMB. Based on this price, Game Science needs to sell at least 3 million copies to make a profit.

Wang Xu, co-founder and chief analyst of Gamma Data, told Nandu reporters that the reason why "Black Myth: Wukong" is so popular is that the game carries too many expectations of domestic users for domestic 3A masterpieces, especially products that can prove the strength of domestic game development on the international stage. So when the video of this game was released a few years ago, it attracted a lot of attention.

"In addition, users' pursuit of game quality has promoted the development of GPU artificial intelligence, and 3A games are one of the representatives. In addition to image quality, a high-quality game can also allow users to experience a different life, especially allowing overseas users to experience and understand the connotation of Chinese traditional culture. This is not an effect that can be achieved intentionally, but a high added value that can only be achieved after the game quality reaches a certain level. This is also an important reason why "Black Myth: Wukong" shortened its online time and attracted more attention."

Zhang Shule, an industry commentator, said that there is no comparable game in China. "From the perspective of game type, although it is a role-playing game, MMORPG games have been the top game in China since the 2000s when online games became popular, and they still have a great influence in the mobile game era, but there are few "action scenes" and they are just mechanical moves. Black Myth: Wukong is more like "Assassin's Creed" and "God of War" in style, which are truly "blockbusters" with diverse action elements. Therefore, there is no game in China that can compare with it for the time being. However, the foreign game "God of War" has some similarities in terms of mythological background, graphic style and action style. Perhaps it can become the Eastern God of War in global games, after all, the protagonist is the Fighting Buddha."

At the same time, Zhang Shule said about the sales expectations for the game, "Although success or failure cannot be judged by revenue. Even if the global sales of a single-player game with a buyout system reach the top masterpieces, its revenue will not be as profitable as that of online games. Personally, I think that the sales of one million sets are just the explosion that has been expected for many years. Without sales of more than 5 million sets, it cannot become the first 3A masterpiece worthy of the title. But based on the current performance, 10 million sets can be expected."

Black Myth will have a trilogy? Tencent holds 5% stake

Behind the highly anticipated "Black Myth: Wukong" stands Shenzhen Youke Interactive Technology Co., Ltd., which was founded by Tencent's senior game developers, and a number of big companies such as Tencent and Hero Entertainment. Intellectual property information shows that the company has applied to register multiple trademarks such as "Black Myth Wukong", "Black Wukong", "Black Myth", "820 捌贰零", "Black Myth·Shanhai", and "Black Myth·Dahuang", and the current trademark status is mostly registered. It is worth mentioning that the company has also successfully registered multiple trademarks for "Black Myth Jiang Ziya" and "Black Myth Zhong Kui", and it has been revealed that this is a trilogy of the "Black Myth" series.

Shenzhen Youke Interactive Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2014. Its founder Feng Ji was the former producer of Tencent's game "Douluo Dalu" and is now also the producer of "Black Myth: Wukong". Its co-founder Yang Qi was the former chief concept designer of Tencent's "Douluo Dalu" and is currently the art director of "Black Myth: Wukong".

Before Black Myth: Wukong, Youke Interactive launched several mobile games such as Hundred Generals and Art of War: Red Tide. Hundred Generals recreates the heroes and historical events that are familiar to everyone based on the background of the Three Kingdoms era, and integrates the core of action games into the classic card system. Players can experience a large number of unique gameplays such as floating, chasing, compressing, interrupting, finishing, super kills, and multiplayer cooperation in a single game. Art of War: Red Tide is the world's first cross-platform real-time team competition game. After its launch in 2017, it was recommended by App Store in 154 countries and regions around the world.

At the same time, one of the company's directors, Wu Dan, is the co-founder and president of Hero Entertainment. Before becoming the co-founder and president of Hero Entertainment, Wu Dan was the vice president of Zhen Fund and invested in games such as "Shadow Blade", "Superhero", "Citizens Gunfight", "MT Gaiden" on behalf of Zhen Fund, including the mobile game "Vainglory" recommended at the Apple iPhone 6 launch conference. In May 2017, Hero Entertainment conducted its first angel round of financing for the company.

According to information, in March 2021, Tencent made a strategic investment in Shenzhen Youke Interactive Technology Co., Ltd., and acquired a 5% stake in Game Science after the investment.

In 2020, Youke Interactive released a 13-minute live demo of Black Myth: Wukong on its official channel. The video has been viewed nearly 50 million times on Bilibili. Founder Feng Ji also shared his experience on Zhihu under his real name. Tencent visited the company to seek investment after seeing the video and said it would only provide support and would not interfere in any decision-making.

At the same time, Feng Ji also revealed that during the negotiation, Tencent said that since "Black Myth: Wukong" was produced using Epic's Unreal Engine, and Tencent had made a strategic investment in Epic Games, the developer of the "Unreal" engine, in 2012, and its works have many collaborations with the company, Tencent believes that it can provide more support for "Black Myth: Wukong" in the future. One of the launch platforms for "Black Myth: Wukong" this time is Tencent's start cloud gaming platform.

[Nearby]
The company is on holiday, the brand is co-branded, and all employees are involved in "sharing the heat" 

On August 19, Luckin Coffee and "Black Myth: Wukong" launched the joint product "Black Myth Tengyun American Coffee", which supports the purchase of designated packages and can receive limited 3D limited poster grating cards, 3 joint cup sets and other peripherals. In connection with "Black Myth: Wukong", Luckin launched a total of three "Black Myth Tengyun American Coffee" packages, and the starting price of each package does not exceed 29 yuan. These peripherals ushered in crazy purchases by players and sold out quickly. However, some store coupons could not be redeemed afterwards. A series of situations caused Luckin's Chief Growth Officer (CGO) Yang Fei to sigh in the circle of friends: "The peripherals across the country were sold out in seconds, and the system almost collapsed. The purchasing power of men overturned the team's cognition this morning."

In preparation for the release of Black Myth: Wukong, in addition to grabbing Luckin Coffee co-branded peripherals, madly guessing the big boss, and writing leave notes to prepare for immersive gaming, players often mentioned that they had prepared a complete set of equipment. In fact, since ‌‌ 3A games have rich game content, exquisite game graphics, and complex special effects, the games have high requirements for graphics card performance and equipment, and many brands have also seized the opportunity to promote them.

Recently, NVIDIA released a trailer for Black Myth: Wukong, showing the visual effects of the game with the support of Ray Tracing (RT) and DLSS 3 technology. It is reported that Black Myth: Wukong uses Unreal Engine 5 and introduces NVIDIA's latest RTX technology, including panoramic ray tracing (also known as path tracing), full-resolution multiple-shot ray tracing indirect lighting and other technologies to enhance the lighting effects, special effects performance and overall immersion in the game, making it one of the most technologically advanced and immersive games on the market.

In addition to NVIDIA, hardware manufacturers have also joined the game. Lenovo launched the Savior PC "Black Myth: Wukong" co-branded customized version, including the Savior Y9000 gaming notebook, the Savior Blade 7000K host and the Savior C170 adapter; the hardware storage brand Zhitai launched the TiPlus7100 solid-state drive "Black Myth: Wukong" co-branded version; Hisense co-branded a customized monitor instead of a cooperative customized monitor. Not only can you buy a monitor and get a game for free, you can also draw a physical collector's edition of the game. AR glasses manufacturer Rokid also rushed to join the game, and co-branded with Tencent start cloud game, one of the release platforms of "Black Myth: Wukong", to launch the Rokid station1 and the new AR lite full series of sets.

It can be seen that as game companies increase their investment in research and development, cutting-edge technologies such as cloud gaming, VR/AR, etc. have been gradually applied in the gaming field, which has inadvertently broadened the game's co-branded market and business formats, even including the tourism industry.

Nandu reporters found that in addition to the surrounding co-branded carnival, local cultural and tourism bureaus have also decided to get a piece of the pie. According to the incomplete filming location list currently disclosed, "Black Myth: Wukong" has a total of 36 filming locations in various provinces and cities, and Shanxi Province alone accounts for 27. In response to this, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism has successively released the "Follow Wukong to Travel in Shanxi" collection since 2022, and there are currently 6 related videos in the collection.

Since it takes a long time to clear Black Myth: Wukong, on the first day of its launch, many companies even announced that they would give their employees a day off to experience the game. Sichuan Muziyang Technology Co., Ltd. issued a notice on August 19, deciding to give all employees a day off on August 20, the day Black Myth: Wukong was launched, so that employees can fully experience the visual feast and game fun brought by Black Myth: Wukong. Gamera Game, the game publisher, announced a holiday on August 20, and said, "In order to avoid colleagues feeling overwhelmed by the temporary suspension of work, each colleague will be given a digital deluxe version of Black Myth: Wukong." The industry media "Game Teahouse" also announced that in order to allow employees to better experience Black Myth: Wukong, it decided to give half a day off on August 20, and at the same time provide everyone with an opportunity to reimburse the game expenses.

Written by: Nandu reporter Lin Wenqi

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