What kind of inspiration does the popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong" give to brands?

The explosive popularity of "Black Myth: Wukong" is not only a carnival in the gaming industry, but also a revelation for brand marketing, demonstrating the huge potential of combining traditional Chinese culture with the modern gaming industry.

From the perspective of IP marketing and brand communication, the miracle of "Black Goku" can be traced: the right time, right place and right people are all indispensable, which can truly drive the company to break out in various segments and drive traffic and sales to snowball.

Sales across all platforms exceeded 10 million, with a peak of 3 million users online simultaneously.

"Black Myth: Wukong" (hereinafter referred to as "Black Wukong"), which had a "dream start", created another domestic 3A game history. Before this, this "sales miracle" belonged to the top IPs such as Zelda, GTA, and Pokémon that had been deeply cultivated for decades. Even "Elden Ring", a masterpiece of soul-collecting games, failed to achieve this.

This is a "national carnival" for all circles. From the joint peripherals being sold out, from the Luckin Coffee joint venture to the Shanxi Cultural Tourism, the capital market has been stirred up, and the huge commercial value is constantly being verified.

Behind the scenes, various departments, local tourism, major media, social platforms, and hundreds of millions of netizens have worked together to promote it. "This is the first time I've seen a game mobilize not only ACG bloggers and users, but more than 20 vertical fields on Weibo. This is also the first time I've seen more than 680 mainstream media and CCTV media broadcast and discuss this game." At the Red Star Festival, the general manager of Weibo ACG Business Group said with emotion.

From a broader perspective, "Black Wukong" also indicates that the domestic gaming industry has reached a turning point.

It is necessary to analyze what is the important reason for the success of "Black Wukong"? After "Black Wukong", how should we correctly understand the game industry? What kind of operational enlightenment does it give to brands and the game industry?

1. Timing: Authoritative mainstream voice, the key to expanding the popularity of popular products

Rooted in the classic Chinese literature masterpiece "Journey to the West" and holding high the banner of China's local traditional cultural IP, many people believe that this is the biggest highlight of "Black Wukong" that attracts the attention of global players.

This is not the most critical point. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has been adapted into games many times before, and the Journey to the West has been adapted into IPs in thousands of ways. Since 1984, when Capcom launched SonSon in arcades based on the Monkey King, there have been many types of games adapted from Journey to the West at home and abroad over the past few decades, but none of them have been as popular as before.

The quality of a game is the foundation of its vitality, and Black Goku is indeed a touchstone of China's game production level. But if a game wants to become a "national carnival", the most important thing is how the popular circles view the game outside the game industry, and whether it has a soil for popular survival.

Overall, games have long gone from being a "monster" many years ago to becoming an important form of entertainment, social interaction, and lifestyle for people, and an important part of the cultural industry.

Many universities have opened e-sports majors, and eight e-sports events were unveiled at the Hangzhou Asian Games and the Beijing International Book Fair, all of which are manifestations of the game moving beyond its negative impression in recent years.

In terms of the market, the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market in the first half of the year was 147.27 billion yuan, the scale of game users was 670 million people, and the actual sales revenue of my country's self-developed games in the domestic market was 117.74 billion yuan. Games have become one of the important engines leading the growth of the new economy and driving employment.

More importantly, the gaming industry has also received support from official policies. The State Council recently issued the "Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Service Consumption", which mentioned in the section "Stimulating the Vitality of Improved Consumption" that "the quality of online literature, online performances, online games, radio and television, and online audio-visual should be improved."

The policy encouragement from the highest department covers the upstream and downstream industrial chains of the gaming industry, including IP cultivation and authorization, marketing, content creation, and live streaming.

The game has a soil for popular survival, and the changes in policies and official public opinion on the game are the key "timing" for "Black Goku" to expand its popularity among the people.

This was the first time that the outside world saw the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and authoritative central media give high praise to a game. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that "Black Myth: Wukong reflects the appeal of Chinese culture", CCTV4 reported on "Black Myth: Wukong" for about 3 and a half minutes in the "Asia Today" column, and Xinhua News Agency released a 32-minute interview video with the game production team.

On major social and short video platforms, many Blue V, official media, and government accounts that have nothing to do with games are very active.

For example, from August 20 to August 24, "CCTV News" posted 7 consecutive Weibo posts about "Black Wukong", ranging from "Foreign netizens inquire about a monkey" to "Everyone has a Monkey King in their childhood", from "National trend works go abroad" to "Check-in at the filming location of Black Wukong", "Black Wukong's true identity" and "Black Wukong's offline copy". Although Weibo is an active platform for government affairs and authoritative media, this is the first time that CCTV News has spoken out for a game in such a high density and diversity.

As of now, seven ministries and commissions, including "Voice of Culture and Tourism" and "China Police Online", as well as more than 700 official government accounts of local culture and tourism, Communist Youth League, fire protection, meteorological, public security and other departments, have interpreted "Black Wukong" from a diversified industry perspective.

For example, the official Weibo account of "China Fire Protection" has creatively initiated a vote on the topic of "How many years will Elder Jin Chi be sentenced for arson?"; "China Police Online" has also posted 5 "Black Goku" Weibo posts so far, ranging from reminding people of the precautions when playing "Black Goku" to teaching people how to quickly pass the level, using a diversified perspective to "popularize advertising science."

It can be said that it is the frequent "likes" from major official media, ministries, and local government affairs - these affirmations, interpretations, support, and publicity that cannot be bought with money - that have expanded "Black Goku" to circles that other games find difficult to reach.

Regardless of whether you play games or not, what age group you are in, whether you live in the city or the countryside, you have probably heard of "Black Goku" these days.

2. Geographical advantage: Popularization of games and the rise of domestic consumption awareness

In addition to the guidance of "time", the "Black Wukong" screen-sweeping all over the Internet is inseparable from the promotion of content and social media, the growth of active player groups and the rise of domestic consumption awareness. This is the "geographical advantage" for all major circles to break through the circle.

In the PC era, although a gaming community culture gradually took shape, the scope of discussion was limited to game players. Coupled with the direction of public opinion on gaming at the time, it was basically impossible to break out of the circle.

The accelerated penetration of mobile Internet and smart phones, as well as the rise of platforms with multiple attributes such as channels, social, content, and communities, such as Weibo, Douyin, and Bilibili, have objectively promoted the rapid growth of the gaming player group.

According to the latest data released by the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association’s Game Working Committee, the number of game users is nearly 674 million, a year-on-year increase of 0.88%, setting a new record. Among them, the proportion of elderly players and female players is also increasing, accelerating the popularization of the gaming circle.

Through content and social platforms, 674 million players have found a common gaming language that connects people of different ages and backgrounds - from sharing strategies to communicating emotions, they are becoming more and more active in expressing their opinions and speaking out, becoming an important force in promoting the development of gaming culture.

Taking "Black Goku" as an example, according to the "Voice Volume" under Xinbang, from August 20th to 22nd, the cumulative number of works on mainstream content platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Bilibili, official accounts, and video accounts reached 192,500, and the cumulative number of likes exceeded 171 million.

Among them, the total number of works of "Black Wukong" on Weibo is the largest, reaching 42,000, mainly various real-time discussions of the game by netizens. The second largest is Douyin, with 40,000 works uploaded by users.

It was the spontaneous content sharing, real-time discussions and emotional exchanges by a large number of players that made the popularity of "Black Goku" "spiral upward". Within 24 hours of its launch, it dominated the hot topics on platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, Bilibili, WeChat, and Zhihu, and received more than 500 hot search topics. In particular, on Weibo, it won 74 main hot searches, 4.7 billion readings, 900,000 posts, 8.68 million interactions, and 240 million video views, which can be said to be a 360-degree hot discussion without blind spots.

Combining the "New List" data and hot searches, looking back at the path of "Black Goku" to become popular, perhaps it has accumulated traffic on other platforms, but it has always lacked the finishing touch and failed to truly break out of the circle.

The key to its sudden popularity is its success in gaining popularity among all major circles on Weibo, as evidenced by the most hotly searched topics and the largest number of user-uploaded works.

This kind of continuous exposure and traffic boost was unimaginable in the PC era and will become the cornerstone of the game industry's continued prosperity.

Behind the explosion of "Black Wukong", it is also inseparable from the cross-field "living" of big Vs, celebrities, and corporate executives in various fields through multiple methods such as pictures, videos, live broadcasts, and jokes, thereby reaching more circles of users.

Before this, it was hard to imagine that chess player Ke Jie and corporate CEO Fu Sheng would broadcast their games live; and that Fudan University International Politics Professor Shen Yi would post dozens of Weibo posts related to "Black Goku", and even have his own "secondary creation" jokes about the game.

One piece of data can illustrate the importance of cross-border traffic and segmentation in games. According to Weibo statistics, within 24 hours of the launch of Black Goku, discussions spanned 15 fields, and the number of cross-field Golden Orange V posts exceeded 30,000, which is 10 times that of pure game fields... All of these are extending traffic and topic popularity to new segments.

In addition to the huge amount of traffic, a large number of consumers are now willing to pay for 3A games - you know, 100 yuan was the price ceiling for domestic stand-alone games before, and the PC standard version of "Black Goku" was 268 yuan, but it still created a sales history of over 10 million in 3 days.

This is inseparable from the rapid economic development and the significant changes in the consumption concepts of Chinese consumers. For example, with the rise of the national trend, more and more consumers are paying for domestic mobile phones, cars, and science fiction movies, and are naturally willing to support "Black Goku" with real money.

"From Black Wukong, we can see that new consumption models and trends, such as Generation Z consumption, digital product consumption, and domestic brand consumption, are injecting strong momentum into the rise of consumption."

ICBC International Chief Economist Cheng Shi said on Phoenix TV that we are currently in a stage where the potential of service consumption is gradually being released, and Black Goku is the best example of how the digital economy can create value.

3. Renhe: Producers, linking brands to continuously release IP value

The explosive popularity of Black Goku exceeded many people's expectations, but it was also reasonable in the eyes of many people. For example, Cheng Shi, although an economist, is a veteran gamer with 36 years of gaming experience. He started paying attention to Black Goku four years ago and believes that its popularity is a natural result.

This is directly related to the fact that the producers adopt long-term IP operations throughout the entire life cycle - from project establishment to release, and continue to release and increase the value of IP through marketing activities over the past few years.

On August 20, 2020, a 13-minute video went viral on social media platforms. This was a live demo of the game "Black Wukong", which has now been viewed over 60 million times on all platforms. At the same time, he was certified as "Black Myth Wukong" on Weibo, and a super topic was established, which has continued to interact directly with netizens online for several years.

Feng Ji has been interacting directly with netizens for several years.

This was the beginning of the Black Goku dream. From the timeline, Black Goku went through three stages, making full use of the advantages and characteristics of different social platforms to conduct precise preheating and implantation in the minds of the people.

The first stage is from 2021 to 2023, during which time the company will continue to release game trailers and demo videos, participate in international exhibitions such as E3 and TGA, hold offline trial sessions for thousands of people in Hangzhou, etc., to maintain popularity in the gaming circle.

In the early stage, when "Black Goku" was in the research and development stage, the key marketing platform was Bilibili. Bilibili is a gathering place for the two-dimensional world, which has gathered a large number of core players in the gaming circle. Video trailers and offline trials were all conducted on Bilibili, which helped it to lay a solid foundation for dissemination in the gaming circle.

At the same time, we have fully entered Weibo through the "Game Official - Manufacturer Official - Producer/Official Art Blog" and maintained active posting, forming a first-hand information dissemination matrix.

The second stage is the pre-sale period from June to August 2024, to maximize the impact of the first release. During this stage, "Black Wukong" chose Weibo as the key social platform, and its method was to constantly create topics and maximize the implantation of the game into the "mind of the whole people."

The effect of continuously adding value to the "Black Goku" IP is obvious. Each pre-sale is sold out in seconds and has received multiple hot searches. The official release of the performance test tool on August 13, the lifting of the ban on media reviews on August 16, and Luckin Coffee's official announcement of the joint venture all attracted multiple hot searches, which directly raised the "expectation value" to the maximum.

Third, we launched a nationwide layout around August 20, using the influence of social networking, short video platforms and industry experts to boost word-of-mouth. We collaborated with top game UP hosts on Bilibili and vertical games to live broadcast the entire process of playing Black Myth: Wukong, and launched the "Live Broadcast First Clearance Contest" in conjunction with Douyin Games;

Huya covers the entire chain from "viewing" to "buying"; and through Weibo, it leverages the three-party linkage and resonance of vertical fields, major media, and KOL celebrities and influencers to accurately break the circle in various segments.

The marketing creativity of "Black Wukong" on Weibo is worth mentioning. It adopts the promotion method of movies, and under the linkage of the above three parties, experience guides, analysis and long reviews, and live broadcasts are released simultaneously; in addition, it also attracts the collective voice of Golden Orange V in the fields of automobiles, technology, new knowledge, the Internet, and celebrities.

Han Lu, a Jincheng V in the automotive field, Wang Teng, a senior executive of Xiaomi, Lu Shihan, a Xinzhi V, and Chen He all published interesting and informative blogs, forming initial user reputation in their respective fields.

Before the game was released, a large number of users were already waiting in front of the screen on time. After the game became a big hit, these users became "tap water", further driving the popularity of the game.

The all-round and three-dimensional breakthrough of "Black Wukong" is also inseparable from the "brand co-branding" with many companies. Before the game was officially launched, "Black Wukong" reached co-branded cooperation with more than 10 brands including Luckin Coffee, NVIDIA, Hisense, Lenovo, Zhitai, Lenovo, JD.com, Didi Qingju, Tmall Xiaoheiheihe, etc.

There are precedents for the collaboration between games and brands, such as "Genshin Impact" and "Peace Elite". The idea of ​​choosing brands for "Black Wukong" is: first, to "collaborate" with offline mass consumer products such as Luckin Coffee and Didi Qingju to expand the audience with offline influence; second, to choose digital and 3C brands, whose user portraits are naturally compatible with games, to help the game further break out of the circle.

The collaboration between Black Wukong and brands is not just a simple joint venture. For example, the joint venture with Tmall Heybox started several months ago, with long pictures and digital posters of the hottest products constantly promoted by KOLs/KOCs.

After the game was officially released, the hot searches were predicted in advance, and "Little Black Box Experience Party" was bound to the keywords #黑神话武空#. Within 10 hours, 14 hot search topics on Weibo "dominated" the screen, bringing waves of buying craze to the brand.

The drink "Tengyun Americano" jointly launched with Luckin Coffee comes with peripheral cup sleeves, paper bags, and flash cards. With the IP value of "Black Goku" and the national beverage effect, a large number of users have actively expressed their opinions, and many related terms have been listed on Weibo hot searches, directly triggering the nationwide offline joint peripherals to be sold out in seconds. Luckin Coffee CGO Yang Fei repeatedly exclaimed, "It's more reliable than 10 Father's Days."

4. What is the potential for game IP marketing?

At present, the popularity of "Black Goku" is still continuing, and the economic value generated by its IP will be further explored and released. For example, CCTV took the lead in checking in the "Filming Location Guide", and local cultural and tourism industries "scrambled" for it, which is an important means to convert the huge online traffic into offline to boost GDP and employment.

But from the above analysis, it can be seen that this miracle has traces to follow: the right time, the right place and the right people are all indispensable, which truly helped "Black Goku" break out of the information cocoon, realize multi-level and multi-field linkage of various circles, and ultimately drive the snowball of traffic and sales.

Many observers believe that for the gaming industry and brands, there are many things worth learning from the inspiration of "Black Goku" to seize the "right time, right place and right people".

First: Games are transcending the scope of entertainment and entering a new stage, becoming one of the important growth engines for boosting consumption and the new economy, and an important carrier of cultural soft power.

Moreover, its huge potential is not only for the game itself, but also for promoting the development of upstream and downstream related industrial chains such as hardware manufacturing, cultural and creative tourism, e-sports events, and peripheral products. This is the signal and confidence that the upper level will brings to the game industry through "Black Goku".

Secondly, to create a perfect product is to create a super IP that the Chinese people can empathize with. The quality of "Black Wukong" is indeed excellent, but without the super IP of "Journey to the West", there would be no super traffic and topics that come with it, and there would be no strong push and likes from the top, and there would be no way to seize the "right time".

China, with a history and culture of about 5,000 years, is not short of similar themes. In addition to the four great classics, "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Investiture of the Gods" are all treasures of ancient Chinese cultural heritage that can be deeply explored.

How to push the familiar stories to a new level through modern technological innovation requires all game developers to return to the essence of the game, make up for the shortcomings in technology, story, and innovation, and be willing to spend time and money to polish out real masterpieces. Only in this way can the game industry avoid the old path of the short-lived science fiction movie "The Wandering Earth".

Third, cross-border marketing and breaking through circles are the only way. Games have long been popular and universal, and the purpose of breaking through circles is to allow more users from all industries to become "tap water". Only by seeing, knowing, actively sharing, exchanging and communicating for a long time can it become a hot topic for the whole people.

This means that from a marketing perspective, the comprehensive layout of social platforms and the use of multiple gameplay methods to promote the stable accumulation of long-term IP users will be taken seriously by major game manufacturers from a strategic perspective. Although the positioning of major platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and Bilibili is different, they will all be "important tools" for game manufacturers to detonate traffic.

Under fierce competition, it is difficult to do a good job in refined traffic operation. From the current perspective, Weibo, which has the ability to accurately screen and break through the circle, is the main battlefield for game content discussion and bears the responsibility of "snowballing" traffic;

Bilibili will become an important platform for game manufacturers' hardcore strategies and offline activities, working hard on "verticality and depth"; Douyin's advantages in short videos and real-time live broadcast functions can help manufacturers effectively convert live broadcast traffic into game users.

Fourth, under the general trend of precision marketing, IP cross-border needs more variety. In the past few years, the market size of the IP industry has continued to expand, but from the perspective of game IP, there is no market scale, and it exists more in the form of derivatives, lacking secondary creativity.

There is still a lot of market room for imagination as to how a game IP can break through industry boundaries, cross-border and integrate with more fields and industries such as literature, film and television, animation, clothing, figures, home furnishings, and tourism to achieve resource sharing, complementary advantages, and coordinated development, and give birth to new business models.

"It is more important to embark on the journey to obtain scriptures than to reach Lingshan Mountain," said Feng Ji, the producer of "Black Wukong". "Records of the Grand Historian: The Biography of Xiang Yu" also said that if a man works hard, heaven will not let him down. If he endures hardships and humiliates others, he can defeat Wu with only 3,000 soldiers. The future of China's game industry is worth looking forward to.

Author | Yang Ming Editor | Liu Shanshan This article is written by the author of Operation School [Jidian Business], WeChat public account: [Jidian Business], original/authorized to be published in Operation School, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.