Top of the hot search, Steam tops! Black Myth: Wukong "Journey to the West"!

From: Wall Street News

Coming from the clouds, facing God’s will head-on!

At 10:00 on August 20, the first domestic 3A game, the first global pre-order, national style, cultural export, full score evaluation by IGN China, early stock market celebration… The fully buffed “Black Myth: Wukong” is officially unlocked on the PS5 / STEAM / EPIC GAMES STORE / WEGAME platforms, firmly occupying the top of the trending topics.

Less than 1 hour after its official release, it climbed to the top of the Steam’s hottest games list, with over 760,000 players currently.

The official website of Black Myth: Wukong shows that the game has four versions: the digital standard edition priced at 268 yuan, the digital deluxe edition priced at 328 yuan, the physical deluxe edition priced at 820 yuan, and the physical collector’s edition priced at 1998 yuan.

This game, which has been brewing for four years in the theme of Journey to the West, has become a pre-order hit. According to official sales channels, the physical version is currently sold out.

“Black Myth: Wukong” has received universal acclaim from global media, with IGN China even giving it a perfect score of 10 points. On the Secondary Market, investors are also collectively cheering for the return of the Great Sage, 01928374656574839201.

The publisher of ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ is Zhejiang Publishing Media. It rose more than 8% in early trading on Monday and stopped rising today. The shareholder behind Issuance is Huayi Brothers, which has risen nearly 50% since August 14th. Today, the A-share game media zone saw a significant rise, with Xinxunda 20CM rising to a halt, and Xunyou Technology, Shunwang Technology, Zhongqingbao, Jibite, and others following the rise.

Pre-order to be the first globally, with a full score rating from IGN

This game is based on the protagonist Sun Wukong from the classic Chinese novel ‘Journey to the West’, combining elements of Chinese mythology and traditional culture to create a unique fantasy world.

Since the release of the first trailer on August 20, 2020, “The Mythical Realm: Wukong” has attracted a large following with its outstanding visual effects and profound cultural background. On Bilibili, the official game account has attracted 3.44 million fans, and the final trailer has been viewed 14.72 million times.

Under the heated and vigorous discussion, the game pre-sale performance of ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ is exceptionally outstanding.

Since the pre-sale started on June 8th, sales have reached 1.2 million copies and nearly 400 million RMB in revenue in the past month. According to the latest weekly sales chart on the Steam platform released by Valve (from August 6th to 13th, 2024), “Black Myth: Wukong” took the top spot in global sales for the current period (excluding free game content and SteamDeck).

According to the download statistics provided by Steam, within less than 4 hours after the pre-load of Black Myth: Wukong was opened, the download bandwidth usage on Steam skyrocketed and reached a peak of 70Tbps, breaking the record for peak download bandwidth usage on Steam.

First-class graphics, unique plot and gameplay have earned《黑神话：悟空》unanimous praise from global media. The average score of 54 media outlets listed on the globally renowned rating website MetaCritic reached 82 points, and it even topped the Weibo hot search with a perfect score from IGN China.

With the popularity of the game, the brand collaboration marketing of ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ has also been very successful. Special edition game-themed merchandise, such as limited edition posters, tote bags, and cup sleeves launched in collaboration with Luckin Coffee, all sold out immediately after release.

Great Saint Subverts the Domestic Game Circle

In the previous QQ exclusive reservation activity, “Black Myth: Wukong” was described as a “must-play domestic 3A masterpiece in 2024”, and the media called it the “first domestic 3A game”, elevating the significance of this game to the national level.

In simple terms, a AAA game is a game with high development costs, a long development cycle, and high resource consumption. “Black Myth: Wukong” is no exception, with a development period of four years and a cost of over 01928374656574839201.

Founder of Game Science, Feng Ji, revealed that the development cost of this game is estimated to be between 15 million and 20 million RMB per hour, with a total development cost of at least 300 million to 400 million RMB.

IGN China reviewers say that Black Myth: Wukong can definitely be regarded as a milestone in the Chinese gaming industry:

The excellent quality presented by this game is worthy of all the expectations it has carried over the past four years. This is a domestically produced game that is truly competitive in the global market. I believe it will become a strong competitor for the game of the year, and the Game Science Company will undoubtedly become one of the top ARPG game developers in the world after this battle.

Domestic game review website Youxinpian.com summarizes the birth of “Black Myth: Wukong” with the “butterfly effect”.

On August 20th, four years ago, the flapping of a cicada’s wings caused a change in the timeline of China’s single-player games. Since then, the grand proposition of the ‘first domestic 3A’ has been placed on these two thin cicada wings, wobbling towards an unknown future…

Securities pointed out that the pre-sale of “Black Myth: Wukong” is hot, showing the strong attraction of high-quality domestic games to the market. The development of domestic 3A games not only helps to improve the overall level of the Chinese game industry, but also brings considerable economic benefits to related enterprises. The outstanding performance of pre-sale results, although not completely representative of the ultimate success of the game, undoubtedly lays a good foundation for future sales.

CITIC Securities stated that the Game Science team has once again proven that games are driven by creativity and design, and even 3A games that require high industrialization are not completely driven by labor-intensive processes. They are expected to continue to attract the attention of companies with strong research and development capabilities.

Round and round, still Tencent

Game Science was established in June 2014 and has a close relationship with Tencent.

First of all, the founding team of the company all come from Tencent, and the main creative team mainly comes from Tencent’s end-game and mobile game projects such as ‘Dragon Oath,’ ‘QQ Huaxia,’ and ‘National Plane War.’ For example, the founder of the company, Feng Ji, was a core member of Tencent’s ‘Fight God’ project, and this game is also based on the popular IP of Sun Wukong.

Interestingly, the name of the game science company also has profound meaning. It is said that Feng Jixi hopes to gradually answer various questions about game production through the development practice of each project, and elevate game development to a scientific level. He and several founders left Tencent in order to pursue high-quality games due to dissatisfaction with the unhealthy atmosphere in the gaming industry.

Tencent is still one of the main financiers of Game Science. After the release of the demo video of ‘Black Myth: Wukong’, Tencent immediately formed a group to conduct research, and then obtained 5% equity of Game Science through additional investment. It is estimated that Tencent’s investment in Game Science is very likely to exceed 200 million yuan.

This investment is different from the past. Tencent promises the ‘Three Nos’ principle of not intervening in business decisions. Game Science will continue to maintain independent operations and its autonomy will not be affected.

In addition to receiving strategic investment from Tencent, in May 2017, Game Science received 60 million yuan investment from Hero Entertainment (now named “Hero Games”), which raised the valuation of Game Science to 300 million yuan.

But in 2022, Hero Entertainment chose to “cash out” and sold the entire 19% equity of Game Science for a transaction amount of 4.8 billion yuan. At that time, the valuation of Game Science had reached 25 billion yuan.

In the ten years since its establishment, there haven’t been many game developments in the field of game science. In addition to the official release of “Black Myth: Wukong” on Tuesday, there have been relatively successful card game “Bai Jiang Xing” and real-time competitive game “War Art: Red Tide”.

It is said that Game Science is the team behind “Black Myth: Wukong” that is being supported by these games.