The black box is opened, and Wukong smashes the Lingxiao Palace of 3A games

The plot of "Black Myth: Wukong" combines the original world view of "Journey to the West" and contemporary creations, and the picture quality and action performance have reached the mainstream level of 3A games.
The success of "Black Myth: Wukong" has taught major game developers a lesson: high-quality games can be made at relatively low costs.
"Black Myth: Wukong" has gained the best reputation that a domestic stand-alone game can get, but it is difficult to change the flow of money and talent in the gaming industry.

"Who murdered our game?"

17 years ago, Feng Ji, the producer of Black Myth: Wukong, raised this question in an article. At that time, this young man, who signed his name as Yuka and was just a new game planner, was quite dissatisfied with the various chaos in the game market. He accused many game planners of not playing their own games and only thinking about "how to make players spit out more gold coins" every day.

"The road is still long, the wind is still strong, and the evil spirit is rising to the sky," he wrote at the end of the article.

17 years later, the company he founded, Game Science, delivered its answer. Black Myth: Wukong, officially released on August 20, is regarded as the first domestic 3A game. It has not only attracted the attention of Chinese players, but also aroused considerable attention overseas. Players studied the trailer frame by frame and even formed a "black science".

What is even more surprising is that the development cost of such a game, which is praised by players for its exquisite graphics and stunning effects, is 225 million to 600 million yuan, which is a bargain among the 3A masterpieces that cost as much as 200 to 300 million US dollars.

Can the emergence of "Black Myth: Wukong" wipe out the "evil spirit" in the gaming industry?

1. Wukong's Birth

Whether viewed through the filter of domestic and local culture, or from a pure player experience, "Black Myth: Wukong" is a masterpiece.

The graphics and action performance of this action-adventure game (ACT) have reached the mainstream level of 3A games. At the same time, the game has many exploration elements. It can be imagined that even after defeating the boss of Black Wind Mountain in the first chapter, there will still be many places to explore. The game is also well optimized on PS5 and there is no lag.

In terms of the plot that has never been exposed before, "Black Myth: Wukong" combines the original world view of "Journey to the West" and contemporary creations. The game does not give fragmented riddles like "Dark Souls" and let players piece together the guesses, but directly gives the game background and gameplay objectives.

Regarding the difficulty of the game, which many players are concerned about, according to the experience of Snow Leopard Finance, after enough early teaching and a few practices, you can successfully pass the early boss. In addition, the game pays great attention to details, such as the grass will shake when the character passes by, and the rabbit will run away when approached. However, some players reported on Weibo that some graphics cards will flash back.

A week before the release of Black Myth: Wukong, it was on the hot search list many times, and two small incidents occurred. First, the plot was exposed on August 13, and then IGN China gave it a score of 10 on August 16.

As of the day before the launch, the well-known foreign game rating website Metacritic combined the ratings of 54 media and gave Black Myth: Wukong an average score of 82. Capcom, which ranked first in the Metacritic publisher rankings in 2023, had an average score of 84.5 for its games. It can be said that the reputation of Black Myth: Wukong has ranked among the top in the world.

The trailer shows the much-anticipated battle between Wukong and the Four Heavenly Kings

Image source: Black Myth: Wukong official website

Although some foreign media have expressed negative opinions on the phenomenon of game crashes, game optimization, and cultural background that make some foreign players feel unfamiliar, it still cannot stop the enthusiasm of players.

Players waiting for the release of Black Myth: Wukong are "spending days like years" in the game group, and some even announced on social networks that they would "take leave to play games" and "sleep until the 20th". The trailer released on August 8 has been played more than 16 million times on Bilibili, and some players have speculated about it and even formed a "black science".

For example, at the end of the trailer, there is a scene where a monkey and an old man are talking in a circle of fire. Some players speculated that the old man was Wu Cheng'en, the author of Journey to the West. "(Wu Cheng'en) traveled around looking for inspiration and encountered many monsters. In the process, he met and talked with the man of destiny, and finally returned home safely to write Journey to the West. Isn't this a closed loop?" This comment received 7,500 likes.

So much so that Yang Qi, co-founder of Game Science and art director of Black Myth: Wukong, had to come out to "refute the rumors": "I have watched a lot of content analysis videos and players' discussions, and many of the speculations are so bizarre that they are beyond imagination."

Image source: Trailer of "Black Myth: Wukong"

In July, the China Game Sales Bar, which has long been paying attention to the sales of domestic games, released the "2024 China Game Sales Half-Year List", and "Black Myth: Wukong" topped the list with 1.2 million pre-sales and 390 million in sales. It was only a little over a month since the game started pre-sale on June 8.

In comparison, the game with the highest pre-sale volume among 3A games is "Cyberpunk 2077", with pre-orders reaching 8 million copies when it was released in 2020, while the 2020 TGA Game of the Year "The Last of Us 2" sold more than 4 million copies within a week of its release.

As of 12:15 p.m. on August 20, the number of concurrent online users of Black Myth: Wukong on Steam exceeded 1.3 million. If PS5 and WeGame platforms are included, the game sales will be even more impressive, and it is expected to have greatly exceeded previous statistics. Black Myth: Wukong currently tops the Steam sales charts in many countries and is expected to reach the level of top 3A games in the world.

After the game was officially launched, it quickly topped the trending searches on Weibo and Douyin. As of 12:00 noon on the 20th, 8 of the top 30 Weibo trending searches were about this game, and 5 of the top 10 Douyin trending searches were related to "Black Myth: Wukong".

Concept stocks and gaming stocks related to Black Myth: Wukong also surged in the capital market. For example, Huayi Brothers rose by 20% today, and the cumulative increase since August 14 is as high as 43%.

2. Developing AAA games at a bargain price

“When will China have its own 3A games?” “Is China unsuitable for 3A games?” “Why can’t China make its own 3A games?”

These questions were discussed repeatedly before the first trailer of Black Myth: Wukong was released.

Black Myth: Wukong seems to have given the answer. The collective emotions that once beat their chests and stamped their feet, and even rudely asserted that there was a lack of 3A soil in China, seemed to have found an outlet.

Although the concept of 3A games is widely used by the media and players, it has not been precisely defined.

The term AAA first appeared in the overseas game market in the 1990s. The concept has changed several times, from "highly anticipated games" to "games with heavy narratives and movie-level graphics." At present, the mainstream understanding of AAA games is stand-alone games with higher development and marketing budgets. "Final Fantasy 7", released in 1997, became one of the first games to wear the AAA hat due to its $45 million production cost and $100 million marketing budget.

Feng Ji, however, is very wary of this concept. In a 2020 Zhihu answer, he said: "It is dangerous to be keen on talking about 3A. This enthusiasm can easily confuse the level of game industrialization with the quality of the game, which are two completely different things, and take the means as the end... Is 3A or not a problem? The most important thing about a game is that it is fun."

Putting aside the debate about AAA titles, the cost of making a fun game is real. So, how much did Black Myth: Wukong cost?

In an interview in 2020, Feng Ji said: "If a player plays for one hour - not constantly stuck or constantly dying, but a relatively smooth gaming experience... the development cost per hour is 15 million to 20 million RMB."

In an interview with foreign gaming media IGN in the same year, Game Science revealed that the target game duration of Black Myth: Wukong is 15 hours. However, according to media and players who participated in the trial, the actual duration may exceed 30 hours. According to the development cost estimate given by Feng Ji, the R&D cost of Black Myth: Wukong is about 225 million to 600 million yuan.

Black Myth: Wukong has exquisite graphics

Image source: Trailer of "Black Myth: Wukong"

Even if calculated at 600 million yuan (about 84 million US dollars), its R&D cost is still very cheap among many 3A games.

In a report released in 2023, the UK Competition and Markets Authority pointed out that the average development budget of 3A games released in 2024 and 2025 is 200 million US dollars, and the cost of new "Call of Duty" and "Grand Theft Auto" may reach 300 million and more than 250 million US dollars respectively.

From project establishment to release, the cost of a game usually includes trailers, social network advertising and offline marketing expenses. According to the above report, the marketing costs of several major 3A game publishers vary greatly, and the marketing costs of some games even exceed the development costs.

The marketing cost of Black Myth: Wukong is not high. From August 2020 to its official launch, Game Science released a total of 8 trailers, and the trial event in 2023 was the largest offline marketing event. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, they also took the opportunity to expose a new boss, the Green-backed Dragon.

In the last promotional video, Game Science even specifically explained: "In order to prove that we are not completely doing no promotion, we made a new promotional video."

"Wukong", a machine with thin skin and big filling, taught a lesson to foreign and domestic manufacturers on cost.

In terms of resources, domestic game giants are no worse than their foreign counterparts. According to Gamma Data's "2024 China Listed/Unlisted Game Enterprise Competitiveness Report", among the top 50 listed game companies in the world in terms of game revenue in 2023, 17 Chinese companies are on the list, ranking first in the world. In various global game company rankings, Tencent and NetEase are firmly in the top ten.

In terms of technology, domestic manufacturers are not behind. For example, the "Dawn" version of "Honor of Kings" uses technologies such as the volumetric light field system to compress the complex light and shadow system to only 2MB of memory. For another example, the zipline system in NetEase's "Naraka: Bladepoint" has achieved a significant improvement in the game's action control effects through tools such as the Playable Action System, and has been compared by players with the top foreign 3A game "Sekiro".

The domestic giants that are most likely to make 3A games have long been silent in the 3A field, and have been taken over by a little-known startup. Lack of innovation may be one of the reasons. In 2020, Tencent Research Institute conducted a questionnaire survey on Tencent Games employees, and about two-thirds of the respondents believed that the innovation of the game products they were responsible for was average or small.

Is the success of Black Myth: Wukong a necessity for the industrialization of China's gaming industry, or is it just an accidental result of a startup's pursuit of perfection?

3. You can’t change the direction of the tide

In 2018, when Game Science just decided to make Black Myth: Wukong, the lead artist Yang Qi posted a Weibo post: "I have been in this industry for 10 years, and it seems like I have been waiting for this day."

For Feng Ji and Yang Qi, stand-alone games are a dream they have always been working hard for. As for Chinese games, Black Myth: Wukong proves that the symbolic significance of China's game industrialization capabilities is greater than its commercial capabilities. The underlying message is that acclaim does not necessarily mean box office success.

Even though Game Science has such good cost control, some players still worry whether Black Myth: Wukong can make back its investment after its release. But few people worry whether Genshin Impact and Honor of Kings can make back their investment.

It is undeniable that the tide has changed.

According to Newzoo data, in 2023, the global game industry revenue will reach 184 billion US dollars, more than twice the size of 10 years ago, and half of the revenue will come from mobile games. In the Chinese market, this trend is even more obvious. According to the China Game Industry Report in the first half of 2024, the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market is 147.267 billion yuan, of which the actual sales revenue of the mobile game market is 107.517 billion yuan, accounting for 73%, while the client plus console games account for only 23.4%.

Before the first trailer was released in 2020, the production team of Black Myth: Wukong had only more than 20 people. Because they were worried about not being able to recruit talents, they recruited by releasing trailers in advance. In comparison, MiHoYo's development team of Genshin Impact has more than 400 people, and the initial R&D cost of the project is as high as $100 million. MiHoYo CEO Cai Haoyu revealed in a speech that after the launch of Genshin Impact, it will cost another $200 million per year to maintain R&D and operations.

Money and talent tend to flow to places where it is easier to make money.

Ten years ago, among the top 10 companies in the global gaming industry with the highest revenues as counted by Newzoo, only four companies, including Tencent, did not engage in stand-alone gaming as their main business. By July this year, among the top ten global game companies by market value, only Sony, Nintendo, EA, and Take 2 still had a main business that was strongly related to stand-alone gaming.

Compared with mobile games, the commercial returns of 3A games are not amazing.

According to public information released by CD Project Group, the developer of Cyberpunk 2077, the game took seven years to develop, not counting DLC. Based on the exchange rate at the time, the game development and marketing costs were approximately $316 million. As of fiscal year 2023, the game has generated a cumulative revenue of approximately $750 million, which means a profit of approximately $430 million in 10 years.

As a first-tier player in 3A games, Cyberpunk 2077's revenue capacity is far behind the top mobile game Honor of Kings, which will have revenue of $1.48 billion in 2023 alone (data from market research firm Appmagic), and continues to generate revenue every year.

Behind this is the fact that the soil for 3A games is shrinking.

According to data from the analysis company DFC Intelligence, as of mid-2020, the number of video game players in the world exceeded 3 billion, of which console game players accounted for 8%. By 2023, the number of players in the world will be 3.7 billion, and console and PC game players combined will only account for 8%. This means that the growth of players of such games is relatively stagnant.

Image source: Cyberpunk 2077 trailer

In an interview with Xinhua News Agency a month ago, Feng Ji said: "In the end, what makes you suffer is not the high mountains in the distance, but the sand on the soles of your shoes. The sand is endless, but if you want to reach that mountain, you have to endure the process... Embarking on the journey to obtain scriptures is more important than reaching Lingshan."

In this sense, the glimpse of the concentrated emotions of players is far from enough, and the journey of learning game science still has a long way to go.

Author: Liu Yimo