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The game has just been released and it has already set off a frenzy in the Chinese commercial market.

Author | Zhang Yongyi
edit| Zheng Xuan

"Black Myth: Wukong" was officially launched globally at 10 am Beijing time on August 20th.

Within less than an hour of its launch, the number of players online simultaneously on Steam alone exceeded one million, and the peak number of online players reached over 1.4 million before the release of this article. Considering that Black Myth: Wukong was also launched on multiple platforms including WeGame, PlayStation, and Epic Games Store, the initial sales alone were enough to break through the previously estimated sales threshold of "3 million copies to break even".

After becoming a viral hit four years ago with an official promotional video released on Bilibili, Black Myth: Wukong has become the most anticipated iconic product in the Chinese gaming industry in the past few years before it was even released. “The first domestic 3A game”, “Journey to the West theme”, “Chinese style”, “the hope of Chinese games”… Behind these labels, the game itself has received a huge amount of attention, but also put a huge amount of pressure on the development team, Game Science.

With the official release of Black Myth: Wukong, Game Science has overcome most of the difficulties on the journey to the West. On this milestone day for the Chinese gaming industry, a commercial frenzy is sweeping the country, with some even exclaiming: Black Myth has vindicated male consumer power.

01

Black Myth: Wukong

Start a business carnival

While all the players are "getting ready to go", the domestic commercial market is also experiencing a carnival: the day before the game was officially launched, Luckin Coffee launched the co-branded "Black Myth Tengyun Americano" with the game in its stores, and provided co-branded paper bags, cup sleeves, game posters and other peripherals.

Black Myth Tengyun American

That afternoon, Luckin Coffee issued a "Restock Notice", stating that consumer enthusiasm far exceeded expectations and that a replenishment plan had been quickly formulated for the limited edition posters, but the next batch of goods would take 15 days to produce. Luckin Coffee CGO Yang Fei also said in his circle of friends that the effect of this joint event was amazing, "the system almost crashed, and the male purchasing power this morning overturned the team's cognition."

The last time Luckin Coffee experienced such a shortage may be traced back to the "Soy Sauce Latte" co-branded with Moutai a few years ago, which also allowed the outside world to see the huge influence of Moutai in the Chinese consumer market.

This is not the first time Luckin Coffee has collaborated with other companies in the gaming industry: Luckin Coffee previously collaborated with other multi-platform games such as Animal Party, and is a relatively experienced brand in this field.

This time, with "Black Myth: Wukong", along with the high discussion of the game itself, the wave of joint ventures in the business field has just begun: Lenovo has previously announced its official cooperation with "Black Myth: Wukong" and will release two customized laptop products. The mobile phone brand Red Magic also released a warm-up poster on the first day of the launch to warm up for the upcoming joint mobile phone; joint game controllers launched with hardware brands such as 8Bitdo and Flyzhi are also online.

In addition to the hardware field which is relatively closer to games, Didi Qingju may be the most unexpected one among the many co-branded parties: Qingju is also one of the first batch to announce the co-branded plan. Based on the appearance of existing shared bicycles, it integrates design elements such as the somersault cloud and bicycle handlebars designed with the golden hoop.

02

Aesthetics, IP and craftsmanship,

Create a good cultural influenceEdit

Since the first trailer was released four years ago and the number of views exceeded 10 million in less than 24 hours, every step of "Black Myth: Wukong" has been enough to leave a new mark in the history of Chinese 3A stand-alone games. This is no exception in the matter of "game co-branding".

However, discussing this issue only from the perspective of "male purchasing power" will undoubtedly greatly narrow the discussion about the influence of the game itself: "Black Myth: Wukong" is a game work that was born and evolved under the Journey to the West culture. While telling a good story, it is also another interpretation of Chinese culture. This coincides with the "national tide" culture that was popular in the consumer goods field before.

Before Black Myth: Wukong was officially launched, the Journey to the West myth itself was a classic cultural symbol that a large number of Chinese people grew up with, and it was able to achieve huge success through various interpretations - whether it was Stephen Chow's A Chinese Odyssey or the 1986 version of Journey to the West, they are still unforgettable and are one of the "greatest common denominators" of contemporary Chinese culture.

In addition to the blessing of cultural background, the unique aesthetic system of "Black Myth: Wukong" also determines that this is a soil that is more likely to give birth to co-branded customized products. The large number of Journey to the West cultural scenes that appear in the game are due to the game development team's construction of a complete artistic style system based on the existing understanding of Journey to the West culture.

During the game production process, the art team visited cultural relics related to Journey to the West scattered across the country, and integrated the development team's own understanding of the story of Journey to the West. Therefore, the overall art style will give people a very "down-to-earth" feeling. This familiar and novel feeling will naturally be integrated into the co-branded customized products - this is an advantage that can only be brought by complete and high-quality art design.

Similar cases have previously occurred in the science fiction field, such as "Cyberpunk 2077", which is also a 3A game, or the movie "The Wandering Earth". The art style of these works has a striking appearance design, so it is easier to gain the favor of co-branded brands after the IP itself gains enough attention.

Although we can see that the current co-branding of "Black Myth: Wukong" is mainly concentrated in the Chinese market, from the perspective of East Asia and even the world where the traditional Journey to the West culture radiates, its co-branded customized products have a strong imagination space: co-branding on this larger stage can not only gain more influence among the user groups originally covered by Black Myth, but also promote "Black Myth: Wukong" itself among game players in more regions, giving "Black Myth: Wukong" the opportunity to challenge the world's top 3A masterpieces, which is a win-win cooperation.

Good works will give birth to good IPs, and good IP operations can further amplify the charm of the original work, ultimately forming a positive cycle and releasing a cultural influence far stronger than the work itself.

"Black Myth: Wukong" has taken a solid step towards China's 3A development. Its significance has exceeded the hundreds of millions of yuan in buyout revenue brought by the game itself. It is destined to leave a strong mark in the history of the development of China's game and even cultural industries.

*Header image source: Black Myth: Wukong official Weibo

This article is an original article from Geek Park. For reprinting, please contact Geek Jun on WeChat: geekparkGO

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