What businesses has been fattened by “Wukong”?

Since the launch of the domestic 3A game Black Myth: Wukong, not only has the game itself sold well, but it has also unexpectedly brought a series of related industries to the forefront, from hardware equipment to the cultural and tourism industry to the piracy black and gray industries. The "Wukong" economic effect is emerging in many fields. This article will take you to learn in detail how Black Myth: Wukong has become a catalyst for the cross-industry economy and a series of business phenomena it has triggered.

Ever since the domestic 3A game blockbuster "Black Myth: Wukong" was launched on August 20, this game has been the focus of recent attention.

A few days ago, the gold jewelry brand Chow Tai Fook became a hot topic because of the "full gold version of the Ruyi Jingu Bang" in its store. Many netizens said that the "same style as Monkey King" that they wanted most appeared.

The total weight of this golden hoop is 7616.06 grams, the gold weight is about 1755 grams, the total length is 2016.28mm, and the price is 1.7998 million. However, the store staff responded that the product was not recently exhibited, which means that the brand did not take advantage of the popularity of the game.

Before the game "Black Myth: Wukong" was launched, many people in the industry were worried about whether "Wukong", which cost 400 million to develop, could make a profit. As a result, on the day of the launch, some industry insiders predicted based on sales that "it may have made a profit."

Now everyone is more curious about how much money it can make. Official data shows that as of 21:00 on August 23, the total sales of the game across all platforms exceeded 10 million copies.

Investment institution Goldman Sachs pointed out in a research report that based on a 7x conversion ratio (conversion from Steam PCCU to PC sales), the game could sell 20 million copies and generate revenue of over 5 billion yuan.

Analysts from Guolian Securities said in an interview with the media that the long-term commercial performance of "Black Myth: Wukong" is expected to be comparable to the top overseas 3A games, with sales exceeding 20 million, corresponding to a turnover of 5.6 billion, revenue of 3.7 billion, and profit of 2.8 billion.

In short, Game Science, the production company behind "Black Myth: Wukong", won.

Not only did the sales of the game itself explode, it also boosted the business of game hardware, peripheral derivatives, local cultural tourism, and even various pirated black and gray businesses.

Pirated Wukong game accounts and peripheral products are crowding second-hand trading platforms; co-branded computers, graphics cards, game controllers and other "Wukong" hardware are quickly sold out once they are released; e-sports hotels, e-sports areas of bath centers, and local cultural and tourism institutions have also launched various "Wukong" packages.

The popularity and revenue of various types of "Wukong" are even as good as the game itself.

1. Low-price piracy and double-priced peripheral products, how profitable is the "Wukong" black and gray industry?

"Game decompression package, complete tutorial, game modifier that can use plug-ins," on a second-hand platform, a merchant discounted the official price of "Black Myth: Wukong" from 268 yuan to 1 yuan, and gave away a lot of game benefits. The platform showed that more than 100 people wanted the product.

The game "Black Myth: Wukong" has become popular, and various pirated copies have emerged one after another. These merchants offer low prices ranging from 1 yuan to several dozen yuan to attract users to place orders.

The pirated versions of the game are also divided into two tiers in terms of price. One is the bargain price of 1 cent, 1 yuan, and 9.9 yuan, and the other is slightly higher, ranging from several dozen to 100 yuan. The two have different ways of making money.

Out of curiosity, player Xiaomi spent 1 yuan to buy the compressed package of "Black Myth: Wukong" on a second-hand platform. He was surprised that the game could be installed successfully, but after entering the game, he could not control the characters in it at all.

Since the merchant stated in advance that it was "not responsible for after-sales and returns", Xiaomi felt that it had only lost 1 yuan and chose to let the matter go.

"Dingjiao" also found a merchant who sold it at a low price of one cent. He emphasized that he did not charge buyers to support genuine products. However, Xiao A, a game practitioner, reminded that you should be more careful when encountering such free content, as it is very likely that the other party has set up a hidden virus in the installation link to steal the buyer's information.

The general routine of the above merchants is to use low prices of a few cents or one or two dollars to attract players to place orders, and evade supervision by stating "the products are virtual resources, there is no after-sales service and no returns or exchanges, and purchasing is deemed to be your agreement to our store's rules" or "various hidden terms", and finally take advantage of the players' desire to get a bargain but not bother with trouble to earn profits or user information.

Another type of business that offers prices ranging from tens to hundreds of yuan is mostly for renting accounts. It can be understood that the business has purchased genuine games, but uses the Steam account to support family sharing and offline login methods to rent them out to others to earn income. Most of these businesses will indicate "personal game account for rent." At present, there is still controversy in the industry as to whether this method is piracy.

Some players also found that after buying an activation code on a second-hand platform, they saw the game in their account, but the game disappeared after they clicked "received". Xiao A, a game practitioner, said that this may be due to some merchants taking advantage of loopholes and waiting for activation to cheat.

It is understood that most popular stand-alone games have experienced piracy. Due to the large number of pirated businesses, game production companies have suffered heavy losses.

For example, the founder of the company that produced the stand-alone mobile game Pascal's Wager, which Apple said was comparable to console-level games and world-class AAA masterpieces, publicly stated that the losses caused by piracy were more than 10 million yuan. Pathia Technology, the company that produced the business simulation game My Time at Portia, once estimated that the losses from piracy in more than two years amounted to 180 million yuan.

An industry insider roughly estimated based on the current popularity of Black Myth: Wukong that "the losses from piracy should be no less than those of these two games."

In addition to the game itself, limited edition peripherals have also been targeted by many people for piracy or fraud.

The collector's edition gift box of "Black Myth: Wukong" sold for 1,998 yuan was doubled on second-hand trading platforms. The co-branded peripherals of "Black Myth: Wukong" and Luckin Coffee were also sold for 25 yuan to 100 yuan. Not only do players have to pay a high price to buy, but there is also the risk of being cheated.

Image source: Screenshot of Luckincoffee’s video account

In order to buy a figure in the official physical collector's edition gift box, game enthusiast 61 was cheated out of 3,250 yuan.

61 found this merchant on a second-hand platform. The merchant said that he could transfer the figure at the original price, but he needed to buy another model in a package, which was equivalent to spending an extra 2,000 yuan.

At first, 61 had doubts about the authenticity of the product, but the other party repeatedly emphasized during the communication that many people were asking him for the price. 61 finally paid the money, but after waiting for a long time, the product was not delivered and he was blocked by the other party. 61 found out through checking the identity information that the other party was a dishonest person, and he felt that it would be difficult for him to get his money back.

“Wukong’s black and gray industries” have enriched many individual businesses.

2. Various brand collaborations: some saw rising stock prices, others saw a surge in sales

In addition to the black and gray industries, more than a dozen brands in the hardware, coffee and tea, travel and other fields that were linked to "Black Myth: Wukong" also made a lot of money. Among them, the coffee and tea brand Luckin and hardware equipment manufacturers such as computers, graphics cards, and game consoles all experienced a short-term "supply exceeds demand" phenomenon.

On August 19, the peripherals jointly launched by Luckin Coffee and Black Myth: Wukong were quickly sold out. Luckin Coffee Chief Growth Officer (CGO) Yang Fei expressed his feelings in his WeChat Moments: "Male purchasing power overturns the team's cognition." On that day, Luckin Coffee's stock price rose by 7.14%, and its market value increased by about $400 million. Some netizens joked that Black Myth: Wukong took more than six years to develop, but it was not as good as Luckin Coffee's one-day effort.

Since the game has high requirements for computer configuration, it has also actually boosted the sales of a number of co-branded hardware.

Lenovo and the game have jointly launched two PC products, namely the Savior Y9000P AI Yuanqi "Black Myth: Wukong" co-branded customized version and the Savior Blade 7000K Super Power Edition "Black Myth: Wukong" co-branded customized version. Both products have a customized Wukong appearance and are priced at more than 10,000 yuan. At 10:00 on August 20, the Y9000P was sold out half an hour after the pre-sale started.

Image source: Lenovo official Weibo

Many people also choose to configure their own computers, which has brought about a computer installation craze in Shenzhen Huaqiangbei Electronics Market. "This guy installs dozens of computers a day" and "Huaqiangbei PS5 is sold out" are hot searches.

Not only in Huaqiangbei, shop owners in computer malls in Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Hefei and other places said that their store sales doubled after the launch of "Black Myth: Wukong", and buyers' configuration requirements are not low, with prices ranging from 6,000 to 10,000.

A shop owner on an e-commerce platform told Dingjiao that he was a UP master. Seeing that Black Myth: Wukong was very popular, he had the idea of ​​customizing a console for his fans. He launched a total of 7 configurations, including CPU, motherboard, graphics card, memory, hard disk, cooling, power supply, chassis, accessories, with prices ranging from 3,500 to 13,000 yuan. In less than a week, 40 units have been sold.

The co-branded graphics cards with "Black Myth: Wukong" were also snapped up by players.

JD.com has publicly revealed that on the day the game was launched, sales of computer components increased by 120% year-on-year, while the graphics card category, which determines the image and video quality and game performance, saw a 200% year-on-year increase in transaction value. Among them, the co-branded graphics cards of the domestic graphics card brand Colorful were sold out.

Since the game has high requirements for PC configuration, many players choose to use PS5 instead. Some practitioners said that before the game was released, the Chinese version of PS5 (game console released for the Chinese mainland market) was not difficult to buy, and many stores were restocking the game after it was released. JD International data showed that on the day of the release of "Black Myth: Wukong", PS5 sales increased by more than 11 times year-on-year.

Recently, Sony announced that it would increase the selling price of PS5 and peripheral equipment by nearly 1,000 yuan. Although the official explanation was that this move was mainly affected by external factors such as "changes in the global economic situation", many netizens felt that it had a lot to do with the global sales of "Black Myth: Wukong".

Game controllers are also hot sellers. On JD.com, Feizhi Octopus 4 "Black Myth: Wukong" co-branded version sold over 10,000 units in one minute, and 8Bitdo "Black Myth: Wukong" co-branded version sold over 30,000 units on the same day.

Young people who know how to save money will also look for second-hand equipment.

A person related to a second-hand e-commerce platform publicly stated that driven by "Black Myth: Wukong", the sales of products such as game controllers, headphones, keyboards, and mice also showed a significant increase.

At this moment, many businesses are offering discounts such as giving away the game "Black Myth: Wukong" when you buy a computer, hoping to make a fortune while the game is hot.

3. Everything can be "Wukong", e-sports hotels, bathing centers, and cultural tourism are all here

"Black Myth: Wukong" has become a hit, and game halls, e-sports hotels, even e-sports areas in bath centers, and local cultural and tourism establishments have also taken this opportunity to market their games vigorously.

Meituan data shows that from August 17 to August 20, the number of searches related to Black Myth: Wukong increased nearly 50 times month-on-month. Many game halls, Internet cafes, and bath centers immediately launched related group purchase packages. One game hall merchant launched a group purchase experience voucher, which sold more than 300 orders in one hour. The e-sports area of ​​the bath center was also hard to find.

E-sports rooms near university campuses were snapped up. Ctrip data showed that on the day the game was released, the search popularity of e-sports rooms increased by 40% compared to the previous day. Many hotels also downloaded the game "Black Myth: Wukong" immediately because there were too many customers calling to inquire about it.

A staff member of an e-sports hotel in Hangzhou told "Dingjiao" that their opening this year coincided with the popularity of the game, so they launched a variety of "Black Myth-Wukong Play Rooms". In the past two weeks, their best-selling room is the "Black Wukong e-sports single room" priced at less than 300 yuan per night.

"Black Myth: Wukong" also helped cultural and tourism industries in various places find the code for traffic.

In the past two years, various places have been in the cultural and tourism industry, and they will definitely not miss such marketing opportunities. The high-quality game graphics are an important highlight of "Black Myth: Wukong". The production team once said that they scanned hundreds of temples and historical sites across the country and imported them into computers to achieve the desired visual presentation effect.

This also brought Shanxi a lot of popularity. It is understood that "Black Myth: Wukong" selected 36 scenic spots across the country, of which as many as 27 were filmed in Shanxi Province.

Image source: Screenshot of the video account of the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism

During the game's hot launch period, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism released the "Follow Wukong to Tour Shanxi" theme route and invited the first batch of players to experience it for free. Ctrip data showed that on August 20, the search popularity of Shanxi increased by more than 10% compared with the previous day, and cities such as Datong and Shuozhou increased by 20%. Fliggy data showed that on the day the "Black Myth: Wukong" game was launched, the popularity of Shanxi tourism doubled compared with the previous month.

Locals also use various social media platforms to promote their hometown. Juzi, a travel blogger from Shanxi, said that she designed a two-day route to travel around the highlights of the filming locations in Datong in Black Myth: Wukong. After posting it on social media, it was liked by many netizens and this is also her most liked post recently.

Other scenic spots have also taken advantage of the popularity of "Wukong" to market their products. The Huaguoshan Scenic Area in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province announced that from August 22 to December 31, visitors can enter the park for free with their ID cards, screenshots of game clearance, and game purchase records. The Lingyan Temple Scenic Area in Shandong Province stated that visitors who have cleared the third chapter of "Black Myth: Wukong" can visit the Lingyan Temple Scenic Area for free for life based on their achievements in clearing levels.

More and more players are getting into Black Myth: Wukong, and people from all walks of life are looking for opportunities to take advantage of the game traffic and make some money.

"Black Myth: Wukong" is far more than just a game.