Black Myth: Wukong’s Breakout Effect: A Market Revelation ofa Game’s Unexpected Success
By [Your Name], Senior Journalist and Editor
September 9th, 2024
The Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong was released globally in late August, selling over10 million copies across all platforms in just four days, generating an estimated revenue of over 3 billion yuan. This made it a phenomenal cultural event of the summer.
Developed by a Chinese team, boasting AAA game production quality, adapted from the famous novel Journey to the West, and featuring scenery from various ancient Chinese buildings and relics, Black Myth: Wukong has become a viral sensation.Its various selling points and topics have flooded social media, attracting the attention of game professionals, researchers, consumers, and even those who previously had no interest in or experience with gaming. The game has successfully broken through its niche and captured the attention ofa wider audience.
This is the first time Chinese players have been able to experience a true AAA single-player game based on a Chinese cultural IP (intellectual property). While games like Overwatch or Cyberpunk 2077 have also been successful in China, they are ultimately Western IPs, saidDaniel Ahmad, Director of Research and Insights at Niko Partners, a US game data research firm, in an interview with Caixin.
A Game’s Unexpected Success
On August 20th, 2024, Black Myth: Wukong was released globally. Within an hour, thegame’s player count on Steam surpassed 1.08 million, breaking the record set by the AAA game Cyberpunk 2077 upon its release in 2020. At 9 pm that day, the peak concurrent player count surpassed that of the classic shooter game Counter-Strike2 (CS2). The next day at 6 pm, according to third-party data agency SteamDB, the peak concurrent player count on Steam for Black Myth: Wukong reached 2.22 million, surpassing single-player games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 developed in Japan and the West, ranking only behind the online game PUBG. Among the top ten games on this list, Black Myth: Wukong is the only Chinese game.
Currently, mobile games account for over 70% of the overall Chinese gaming market, client gamesrunning on computers (PC) account for 30%, and console games aimed at gaming consoles account for less than 1%. Single-player games are distinct from online games, meaning they can be played without an internet connection. Black Myth: Wukong is a single-player game released on both PC andSony’s PlayStation (PS) console.
On August 23rd, the fourth day after the game’s release, Game Science, the developer of Black Myth: Wukong, announced that the game had sold over 10 million copies across all platforms. This speed surpassed some well-known blockbusters: Elden Ring, released on February 25th, 2022, took 17 days to reach 12 million global sales; Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, released on January 19th of this year, took 13 days to sell 12million copies.
This game has overturned the average user’s perception of games, but its popularity…
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