news

author|xiaodong

statement|the title picture comes from the internet.

original article from jingzhe research institute

although"black myth: wukong》it has been 10 days since its official launch, but the "myth" about this game is still being written.

according to data from foreign data analysis company vg insights, as of august 27, the total sales of "black myth: wukong" have reached 15.4 million copies, with total revenue exceeding us$730 million (approximately rmb 5.1 billion). its sales growth rate has also exceeded that of "elden ring》《cyberpunk 2077》 and other popular games.

it's not just the gaming market that has generated a huge "money-making effect". multiple consumer markets, from game controllers and consoles to computer graphics cards, hard drives, monitors, and even coffee, have all experienced a "small climax" due to the popularity of "black myth: wukong".

this "black myth phenomenon" in which a game triggers a carnival in the entire industry also verifies a fact: the commercial value of a game is not just the game itself, but also lies in a whole set of "game economics" formed by the consumer market that is related to the game.

the game goes beyond the circle, not only the ip effect

when discussing the various commercial phenomena triggered by "black myth: wukong", a considerable part of the discussion focused on the ip effect brought about by the game's popularity.

during the official launch of the game, many partners of game manufacturers also took turns to "take advantage of the trend". however, if we only treat the game as an independent object and discuss the positive impact it brings at the brand level, it would be too one-sided.

in fact, compared with the direct economic benefits generated by purchasing the game, many players spend a lot of "extra" money in order to play this game, and the most important consumer expenditure is used to update and upgrade gaming equipment.

according to official information, black myth: wukong requires a minimum graphics card configuration of nvidia geforce gtx 1060 or amd radeon rx 580 for pc devices. however, for hardcore players of 3a games, a high-end full configuration is the only correct way to play the game.

therefore, as more and more gamers aspire to become the "destined person" in "black myth: wukong", the graphics card market has taken the lead in experiencing an explosion. the nvidia geforce rtx4070 high-end graphics card, which is officially listed as the best experience configuration by the game, has quickly gained in sales, and even the sales of rtx 4060 ti and 4060 series graphics cards have increased significantly.

on the "what's worth buying" platform, computer accessories sales increased by 48.8% week-on-week from august 14 to august 20, with graphics card gmv increasing by 60.6% week-on-week. on jd.com, the overall transaction value of gaming graphics cards increased by more than 200% year-on-year, with colorful's "black myth: wukong" co-branded graphics cards quickly selling out.

from this we can see an interesting phenomenon: many players who have not changed their mobile phones for several years due to rational consumption concepts, will not hesitate to take out three to five thousand yuan from their pockets to replace a new graphics card for a game.

this seemingly impulsive consumption is not a "iq tax" paid after being deceived by the merchants' marketing methods. to be more precise, players can actually see the value brought by consumption.

for example, in black myth: wukong, different graphics card configurations bring completely different game screen effects. the entry-level configuration can show the outlines of objects in the picture, and occasionally there will be freezes and frame drops, which is "barely playable" in terms of gaming experience. however, with high-end graphics card configurations, not only is the picture smoother, but it can also show more details such as reflections on the water surface, the granularity of sand, and the lines and luster of sunlight shining through the leaves into the forest.

the clarity of consumption results undoubtedly shortens the decision-making path of consumer behavior.

therefore, the hot sales of graphics cards driven by black myth: wukong are essentially a permanent investment made by players for the gaming experience. although game manufacturers have not seen a significant increase in their own revenue due to the increase in graphics card sales, the hardware upgrades completed by players themselves, such as upgrading graphics cards, purchasing ps5 game consoles and game controllers, are also indirect economic benefits brought by the game.

it can also be seen from the phenomenon of players rushing to buy graphics cards that the gaming experience itself is the most original consumption motivation, and the upper limit of consumption scale is determined not only by the game pricing given by the manufacturer, but also by all possible business opportunities for the gaming experience.

the value of games is also beyond the screen

it is not uncommon to stimulate consumption through game products, especially in the field of console games.almost since the birth of the industry, game content and hardware equipment have been the two core links, together forming the unique economic model of games.

in 1972, game developer atari developed the first commercial arcade game "pong". this game, in which players manipulate a long bar to "play table tennis" on both sides of the screen, established atari's position as the ancestor of arcade games, and the best-selling game console at the time was the magnavox odyssey.

later, apple founders steve jobs and steve wozniak joined atari to design and develop the classic brick-breaking game breakout.

in the era of home game consoles, the family computer (fc for short, often called the "family machine" in china) released by nintendo successfully took over the dividends of the game market after the explosion of the arcade era. with its low price and quality advantages, it sold more than 500,000 units in two months.

half of nintendo's rapid rise is due to gaming software.at that time, nintendo released "super mario bros." (also known as "super mario" by domestic players) produced by shigeru miyamoto. the game's novel gameplay and varied level settings made the "family console" the entertainment choice for many families, and established nintendo's position in the industry with a 98% market share in japan.

however, compared with the rapid rise of a single company, what is more positive for the development of the entire game industry is that in 1985, in order to fully promote fc, nintendo allowed other manufacturers to participate in the development of games and sell them in the form of cartridges.

if we re-examine this decision from the perspective of later generations, we can easily find that although nintendo opened up the rights of third-party game developers entirely for the purpose of its own development and seizing the game console market, the result of this move has made game software development and hardware equipment manufacturing become relatively independent links in a truly sense, and constitute the primary upstream and downstream industrial chain.

since then, well-known game manufacturers including konami and capcom have gradually emerged and created classic games for fc consoles such as "contra", "street fighter" and "mega man".

later, with the development of electronic technology, various new-generation game consoles such as playstation, xbox, and psp came out, replacing and driving the original game market to continue to prosper. the game industry still maintained an upstream and downstream industrial chain consisting of game software and hardware equipment.

even now that pc has become one of the main gaming devices, updates to hardware devices such as processors, graphics cards, hard drives, and external game controllers still play an important role in players' gaming experience.

after "black myth: wukong" was officially launched, a large number of new players began to rush to buy ps5 game consoles. this phenomenon is no different from the time when chinese players bought a "subor learning machine" in order to play "super mario" and "contra".

the occurrence of this phenomenon, in addition to proving that the game itself is good enough, also reminds people once again that the value of the game is not limited to the exciting game scenes on the screen, but also exists in the consumer market related to the game experience outside the screen.

so according to media reports, stores selling ps5 have been busy since the day "black myth: wukong" was launched; internet cafe owners have been racing against time to upgrade computer configurations to welcome the endless stream of players who come to experience the game; even on second-hand platforms, illegal merchants selling pirated games have begun to appear.

the essence of the "black myth phenomenon" is not only that an internet celebrity ip has generated a huge traffic effect, but also a microcosm of "a hit product supporting an entire gaming industry chain."

the origin of “game economics”

while "black myth: wukong" was a huge hit, it also sparked a lot of discussion about the current state of the gaming industry. the most common view was that "game manufacturers pay too much attention to the economic benefits of the game itself, and only think about how to improve retention and krypton gold, and have lost the ideal of the gaming industry."

in fact, there is nothing wrong with game manufacturers focusing on economic benefits from a commercial perspective. it is just that the environmental changes encountered by the game industry have led to an increasingly obvious utilitarian orientation.

in an era when game consoles occupy the center of the market, electronic games, like watching tv dramas and variety shows, are one of the main ways of daily entertainment. the means of competition among game manufacturers are more reflected in the gameplay and hardware experience.

with the advent of the internet era, people's entertainment scenes have begun to shift online, and console games and game consoles have become a "niche consumer" market.coupled with the rise of the free model under the internet wave, the focus of the game industry has also shifted to the monetization path of "attracting registrations - maintaining retention - increasing conversions".

in the era of mobile internet, the popularity of smart phones has promoted the rise of mobile games, and the user scale has shifted from pc to app. the scene iteration from large screen to small screen limits the expressiveness of the picture, and the fixed touch screen operation has resulted in a single operation mechanism.these changes in gaming scenarios have lowered the threshold for game development in the pc era to a certain extent, and also made it difficult to create a gap between gaming works.

coupled with the rapid growth in the number of mobile game players and the convenience of mobile payments, although some game manufacturers still adhere to the strategy of high-quality products, when they see that other competitors can make a lot of money just by transplanting ips and changing skins, fewer and fewer people can stick to the industry's ideals.

eventually, the current industry situation was formed: the product attributes of games replaced the commodity attributes, and game manufacturers, based on the product operation thinking of the internet, were busy competing for traffic, grabbing the market, and emptying the pockets of players in a cage. few people wanted to break the cage and complete an industry revolution.

all game industry practitioners know that 3a games are the "crown jewels" of the game industry, but because of the high investment and high risks brought by the long research and development cycle, most people are reluctant to try it easily.it was not until the emergence of "black myth: wukong" that the growth potential of the stand-alone game market was verified, and it boosted the sales of game accessories, consoles, and graphics cards, allowing some people to rediscover the charm of games, which are called the "ninth art."

perhaps many people have forgotten that the development of graphics card technology is closely related to the gaming industry. especially with the rise of 3d games, game manufacturers have increased their demand for graphics processing capabilities in order to produce more stunning game graphics, which has prompted graphics card technology to support more complex and realistic game graphics.

game developers have created a complete, three-dimensional game world through unique worldviews, character settings, sound effects, and graphics, and have pushed human imagination to its limits. as players follow the game progress and gradually experience the developers' designs and ingenuity, they will feel the spiritual resonance that only higher creatures can have.

the excellence of "black myth: wukong" does not lie in the fact that it is a blockbuster game that has been developed for 6 years and incorporates the story of journey to the west and chinese cultural background, but in the fact that it provides new growth motivation for more consumer markets outside of games and also lays the seeds for industrial upgrading.