On the release date of Black Myth: Wukong, we recorded 66 numbers related to it

Black Myth: Wukong was officially unlocked yesterday. This highly anticipated game has attracted most of the attention before it was released. After it was launched, it set many records. In this article, we will sort out its data and see how it performs.

Smooth out the bumps and make a road, fight through the difficulties and set off again.

After a long wait of thousands of days and nights, at 10 am on August 20, 2024, Beijing time, the action role-playing game "Black Myth: Wukong" produced by Game Science and based on Chinese mythology was unlocked as scheduled.

On this day that has shaken and excited the Chinese gaming community, we tried to record 66 numbers related to this game, in order to bear witness to this long-awaited stone and the thousands of waves it has stirred up.

The second Black Myth: Wukong was officially launched, six related terms appeared on the TOP50 most talked-about Weibo searches on the Chinese Internet, including the No. 1 search. Two hours later, the number of related searches further increased to 14, and the astonishing discussion quickly swept across all mainstream social platforms.

After the game was officially unlocked, the unexpected decompression phase made many "destiny people" anxious. This was jokingly called "the first of the 81 difficulties" by netizens, and a screenshot with an estimated decompression time of more than 500 years was widely circulated, becoming a joke that echoed the setting of the Five Finger Mountain in the original work.

Image source network

According to SteamDB monitoring, only about 1 hour after "Black Myth: Wukong" was launched, the number of online players on Steam exceeded the 1 million mark, quickly becoming the single-player game with the highest number of online players in history, breaking the record set by "Cyberpunk 2077".

At around 8 p.m., the number of online players on Steam for Black Myth: Wukong exceeded 1.8 million, surpassing Counter-Strike 2. At around 9 p.m., the number of online players further exceeded 2.11 million, surpassing Paranormal Beast and second only to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. It should be pointed out that the Steam store is only one of the multiple platforms where Black Myth: Wukong is available. If other channels such as WeGame and PlayStation are taken into account, the total number of online players of Black Myth: Wukong may be even higher.

Having said that, since the number of online players of "Black Myth: Wukong" is far more than 2 million, it means that on average each of the 100,000 heavenly soldiers and generals will have to fight against no less than 20 monkeys - now, who is the one being beaten?

There were early signs of a hit. Before its launch, the WeChat index of Black Myth: Wukong soared, forming an extremely steep curve. On August 14, its WeChat index was about 37 million. On August 19, its WeChat index was close to 190 million.

At the same time, according to official Steam data, the pre-load of Black Myth: Wukong caused Steam download bandwidth to soar to a high of 70Tbps. This is more powerful than the peak download bandwidth of Cyberpunk: 2077, which was 51Tbps.

In July, when the China Game Sales Bar released the "2024 China Game Sales Half-Yearly Chart", it estimated that the pre-sale volume of "Black Myth: Wukong" was 1.2 million copies, with sales of 390 million yuan. Before the launch, "Black Myth: Wukong" once topped the sales charts in 23 of the 30 regions counted by Steam. The latest data shows that it has become the number one sales chart in all countries and regions of Steam worldwide.

Image source network

In fact, Black Myth: Wukong is both a critical and commercial success. When the game was first released, its Steam favorable rating was about 86%. This number has gradually increased over time. As of the finalization, Black Myth: Wukong's Steam favorable rating has reached 96%, with more than 50,000 user reviews, and has received a "rave reviews" rating.

In contrast, the global media reviews of Black Myth: Wukong were released on the eve of its launch. According to the Metacritic platform, the average score given by 57 media outlets was 82 points. The debate between IGN headquarters' 8 points and IGN China's 10 points is one of the most discussed topics in the player community in recent times.

As the popularity of the game continues to rise, the limited edition physical version of Black Myth: Wukong has also been increasing in value. In the second-hand market, the original price of 820 yuan for the physical deluxe version has risen to nearly 2,000 yuan; the original price of 1,998 yuan for the physical collector's edition has even risen to a high price of 4,000 to 6,000 yuan.

After the official release, a small Easter egg about the preview material was finalized. Over the past few years, Black Myth: Wukong has released a total of 12 Chinese promotional videos, with a total length of exactly 81 minutes. It can be imagined what a meticulous adventure this is.

Not long ago, Feng Ji, the producer of Black Myth: Wukong, and members of the main creative team accepted an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Yang. The producer revealed in the interview that the huge momentum caused by the first trailer was an accident. The internal expectation was 500,000 views, but it was unexpected that the final number exceeded the expectation by 100 times. At present, the cumulative number of views of the trailer on Bilibili has exceeded 57.7 million.

On August 20, 4 years ago, or 1,461 days ago, Game Science released the first trailer of the Black Myth: Wukong project, which received an extremely enthusiastic response from all over the world. On the release date 4 years later, many people recalled "where the dream began". Whether you click on the B station link of this trailer in the morning or in the evening, you will find that there are still more than 2,000 users watching with you.

Image source: Station B

Over the past week, the official B station account of "Black Myth: Wukong" has maintained an impressive growth rate in followers, with the number of followers increasing by more than 100,000 in a week.

Not only is Black Myth: Wukong extremely popular in China, it is also extremely popular in the foreign gaming circle. From afternoon to evening, it topped the popularity charts of Twitch and YouTube, two major game live broadcast platforms. According to the Twitch platform, Black Myth: Wukong has about 200,000 viewers, far ahead of all other games.

As for the domestic live broadcasting circle, the appeal of Black Myth: Wukong is beyond words. In the stand-alone game live broadcasting section of Bilibili, its share is infinitely close to 100%, capturing both new anchors with single-digit viewers and top talents with millions of fans. There are countless bloggers and organizations that have crossed over to broadcast, and the boundaries between different sections are gradually blurring.

On August 20, NVIDIA GeForce's official Weibo account, which had not been updated for several days, posted three posts related to Black Myth: Wukong. It can be said that the cooperation and support from various industry links such as engines, hardware, and publicity and promotion are also the key reasons why Black Myth: Wukong can win the applause of the audience.

The outstanding market performance of Black Myth: Wukong is radiating to more areas, including A-shares. In the first five trading days after the game was launched, Huayi Brothers' cumulative increase reached 43.6%, because the company holds shares in Hero Entertainment, which is one of the investors of Game Science, the producer of Black Myth: Wukong. Similarly, companies such as CITIC Publishing, which participated in the publication of the game setting collection, and Zhejiang Publishing Media, which participated in the game version number application, have seen a 20% increase in stock prices due to various connections.

In terms of commercial linkage, the logos of many brands such as Lenovo, Hisense, Didi, and Luckin Coffee are linked with the word "Wukong", which has gained considerable market influence. On August 19, due to the shortage of materials, Luckin Coffee issued a replenishment notice, saying that the enthusiasm of players far exceeded the team's expectations and it would take about 15 days to produce a new batch of peripherals.

It is worth mentioning that as a game based on the traditional Chinese cultural background, Black Myth: Wukong has restored a large number of ancient Chinese buildings in the scene design, which is impressive. The Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism recently released a promotional video, focusing on famous cultural relics such as Xiaoxitian and Yuhuang Temple. According to incomplete statistics, Shanxi accounts for 27 of the 36 game filming locations in various provinces and cities.

TV fans will find that CCTV-4 Chinese International Channel reported on Black Myth: Wukong for about 3 and a half minutes in the "Asia Today" column tonight. CCTV-6 Movie Channel happened to show an action movie called The Monkey King 2: The Legend Begins. The line on the trailer cover reads: "Sun Wukong is back."

Image source: Weibo @Movie Channel

There are many more coincidences.

For example, in addition to this "Wukong" in the gaming industry, this August there is also a typhoon No. 8 named "Wukong" that is coming to the world. ‍‍‍

Image source: Weibo @CCTV News

On this day, the popular Black Myth: Wukong made the topic of "What is a 3A game" a hot search. Generally speaking, the three "A"s in "3A games" refer to "A lot of money", "A lot of resources" and "A lot of time", which generally reflect the characteristics of such games with high costs and long production cycles.

For Game Science, the development cost of Black Myth: Wukong is about 15 million to 20 million yuan per hour of gameplay experience. The outside world speculates that the R&D cost of the project is at least 400 million yuan. In addition, official information shows that Black Myth: Wukong was launched in February 2018. As of August 2024, when the game is released, the project has experienced a cumulative development time of 6 and a half years.

Although local 3A games seem to be attracting much attention, they are by no means the mainstream direction in terms of the industry structure. The "2023 China Game Industry Report" shows that the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market in 2023 will be 302.964 billion yuan, of which the actual sales revenue of the console game market will be 2.893 billion yuan, accounting for less than 1%.

However, changes are indeed happening. In 1997, the local game "Blood Lion" priced at 86 yuan caused great harm to Chinese players and the market, and also cast a layer of dust on the dream of local game masterpieces. Today, 26 years later, the standard version of "Black Myth: Wukong" priced at 268 yuan has finally arrived, step by step opening up the domestic 3A road that has been doubted countless times.

According to the trial media, at the end of Black Myth: Wukong, the developer Game Science did not present the project personnel list according to the job level system as the industry practice, but arranged the personnel according to the time they joined the project. The creative team of this game grew from 13 people in the early stage to more than 100 people in the end. Even in the later stage, it was less than 1/3 of the average team size of overseas games of the same size. In the eyes of many people, all this is simply a miracle.

The background of the "God of War" project created by the Game Science Team is well known. The game was first unveiled at TGC and is also based on the story of Journey to the West. It started public beta in April 2014. "God of War" carries the feelings of a group of gamers and is also regarded by many players as a unique gem of the times. 10 years later, the unfinished story of Journey to the West has returned to the world in a different form.

At 5 a.m. on August 20, 2024, Feng Ji, the former chief planner of "God of War" and current producer of "Black Myth: Wukong", posted a message, leaving three "reminders" for players who may still be asleep. It received more than 3,500 comments and 52,000 likes. At the end of the message, Feng Ji concluded with this: "Life is much more difficult than games. Don't be scared by those bluffing monster kings. The little monkey will grow up, and so will you."

Image source: Steam

Text｜Xinghui‍ Editor｜Principal