Black Myth: Wukong – The Rise of China’s Gaming Industry

Deep within the verdant Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, a mysterious stone had long sat undisturbed, soaking in the primordial energies of yin and yang that suffuse all universe.

One fateful day, it sprouted a stone womb from which burst a stone egg the size of a melon; when the breeze caressed it, the egg transformed into a tiny stone monkey whose eyes, upon opening, launched golden beams that pierced the heavens and startled the Jade Emperor upon his celestial throne.

It’s difficult for us today to imagine the shockwaves that the birth of the Monkey King sent across the mythological universe, considering the story of Journey to the West is rooted in the distant past. However, on August 20, 2024, we are witnessing another fateful day, arguably of similar magnitude for the global gaming industry, with the release of Black Myth: Wukong.

At 10 AM of this day (GMT+8), the highly anticipated game Black Myth: Wukong officially went online. However, after instantly attracting over hundreds of thousands of players, the servers behind the game, Steam, buckled under the heavy load and experienced a brief crash.

By 10 PM, there were over 2.2 million players online on the Steam platform. According to download statistics provided by Steam officials, within less than 4 hours of the early access pre-load opening for the game, the download bandwidth usage on Steam rose rapidly, reaching a peak of 70Tbps and setting a new record for peak download bandwidth usage on this platform.

The game achieves immense financial success. Since pre-orders opened on June 8th, sales have reached 4.5 million copies and generated over 1.5 billion RMB in revenue. According to Valve’s latest Steam weekly sales chart (August 6-13, 2024), Black Myth: Wukong pre-orders topped the global No. 1 spot for the period (excluding free game content and Steam Deck).

The game’s outstanding visuals, unique storyline and gameplay have earned it rave reviews from global media outlets. On the well-known review aggregator site MetaCritic, the average score given by 54 media reviews is 82, with “IGN China’s perfect score” even trending on Weibo.

The Monkey King is shooting golden beams that startle everyone. Gamers are amazed by both the fluidity of combat scenes and the intricate character animations.

“Wearing a phoenix-winged crown of purple gold, dressed in golden chainmail armor, feet clad in cloud-stepping lotus-fiber shoes, wielding the golden cudgel.”

Black Myth: Wukong creates a dreamlike Journey to the West world for players through its incredibly gorgeous and realistic visuals. This impressive feat is largely due to the game’s innovative use of spatial computing technology.

Virtual Point, a Beijing-based startup specialized in “spatial computing”, a branch of AI technology, has played a crucial role in the game’s development. Their OptiTrack optical positioning and capture technology has enabled the creation of stunningly realistic environments and characters. As a result, the company is chosen by Game Science, the producer behind Black Myth: Wukong, to provide the technology support. By scanning real-world locations such as temples, Buddha statues, forests, and rock formations, the team has crafted an authentic and immersive game world.  

The dedication to authenticity is evident in the Game Science team’s approach. They traversed China to establish the country’s first virtual asset library of ancient architecture, meticulously recreating historical sites like the Dazu Rock Carvings and Lingyin Temple.

Virtual Point’s technology goes beyond environmental replication. Their motion capture capabilities allow for 1:1 recording of human expressions, body postures, and intricate movements. This data is then transformed into lifelike 3D animations, ensuring that in-game characters move and react with unprecedented realism.

Traditional game production relies heavily on imitation to reproduce human movements and postures as animations. However, imitation can only approximate the complexity of real actions and often results in distorted character depictions.

OptiTrack motion capture transforms this process by accurately capturing an actor’s every motion and seamlessly translating it into lifelike character animations within the game. This holistic approach captures both basic movements like walking and running as well as more intricate actions such as climbing, swimming, and using special abilities. The animated characters become a dynamic replication of life, drastically reducing the time and effort required of animators to manually craft each movement. This application of motion capture substantially improves production efficiency.

Meanwhile, spatial computing technologies are also enhancing game development. By generating immersive 3D environments, these platforms allow players to interact more naturally within virtual worlds. At the core, this advances the interactive experience through richer engagements while simultaneously improving collaboration and analytic insights. It also strengthens training applications. As these technologies proliferate development workflows, they will drive continued progress across the industry by introducing innovative new possibilities at each stage of creation.

As a AAA game (a gaming industry term usually referring to games created with “large amounts of money, resources, and time”), Black Myth: Wukong marks a milestone in the development of Chinese gaming industry. The significance goes beyond the innovation in technology. It’s the coming of age for Chinese gaming industry which was not long ago dominated by developers of low-quality online games.

Single-player games such as Black Myth often require substantial development costs and significant resources for graphics, story, and gameplay mechanics, plus a lengthy production process. The profitability of single-player games hinges on achieving high sales volumes shortly after release. Once a single-player game is sold, the revenue typically diminishes over time.

Online games, on the other hand, often charge a recurring fee for access, providing a steady revenue stream. These games often include in-game purchases for cosmetic items, loot boxes, or expansions, significantly boosting revenue. Some online games are free to play but monetize through in-game purchases, allowing players to access the game without upfront costs while generating income through optional purchases.

More importantly, online games, especially multiplayer games can foster community and engagement, encouraging players to spend more time and money within the game. This can lead to a more stable player base and consistent income. Online games can also scale their operations more efficiently, adjusting to player demand and introducing new content regularly to maintain interest and revenue flow.

Compare to the hefty development cost of single-player games, online game is quick money. The lifespan of mobile and online games is often shockingly brief, far shorter than many anticipate. In South Korea, the average mobile title perseveres for a mere three months; in China, an overwhelming 83% of such games fail to survive beyond three years.

For these types of interconnected digital products, continuous user growth and stickiness are paramount metrics of success. A perpetually expanding player base promises exponentially greater potential revenues through in-app purchases, cementing the game’s profitability over time.

However, traffic inevitably plateaus, and cultivation must supplant untamed acquisition. When key indicators like monthly and daily actives begin to taper, fewer spenders typically remain. If maintaining operational costs outstrips earnings, shutdown looms – a fate shared by most of the social network apps should user interest wane.

Therefore, while the initial surge may dazzle, sustainability demands meticulous attention to retention, re-engagement, and optimization. Only by vigilantly nurturing lingering players can a game’s true potential lifespan be realized, outlasting the industry’s routine three-month or three-year expirations through constant evolution.

As a result, reckless user acquisition emerged as a defining internet philosophy within China’s mobile and online gaming sector. In the initial mobile renaissance, titles relied exclusively on traffic dynamics while minimizing content development.
This paradigm disregarded players’ evolving tastes by prioritizing marketing campaigns over meaningful game design. Such an imbalanced approach, focusing solely on influx while neglecting substance, foreseeably resulted in fleeting lifecycles sustained by unsustainable “reskinning.”

During this era, many studios underinvested in craftsmanship while aggressively hyping replacement iterations. Money flooded promotions over innovation, dooming offerings to shallow, ephemeral popularity. This profoundly unhealthy model underestimated how crowdsourced experience would enlighten discernment over time.

As the consumer base swelled and matured, superficial lures lost potency. Players increasingly demanded experiences worthy of their devoted hours. Those clinging stubbornly to traffic-first tactics found ephemeral prosperity gave way to stagnation as appetites elevated beyond base impulses.

While acquisition measures sparked early success, sustainable dominance requires symbiosis of art and technology, depth over frequency, appeal evolving in lockstep with an ever-refining audience. Only a balanced vision embracing both ephemeral buzz and enduring legacy may endure as tastes ascend.

The Chinese gaming industry reached a tipping point. As players’ taste evolves, the gaming industry started to embrace qualitative growth over quantitative expansion. Then the regulatory bodies of Chinese government stepped in and lent crucial support through strategic reforms.

In 2018, the regulatory body temporarily suspended the approval of the licenses for new games. Game approvals represent the authoritative imprimatur granted by China’s National Press and Publication Administration, upon meticulous examination of prospective titles. These licenses functionally serve as gates regulating the volume of experiences granted market entry, thus functioning as a proverbial “weather vane” signaling industry winds.

The authority explained their intention. When industry leaders convened for the 2018 China Game Conference organized by National Press and Publication Administration, the theme of “Responsibility and Development” guided insightful discussions.
During the conference, the following recommendation was put forward: “In the past, the Chinese game industry paid too much attention to quantity and ignored quality to some extent. Therefore, it is hoped that the game industry can accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading as soon as possible to produce high-quality games and assume the responsibility of spreading and exporting Chinese culture overseas.”

By tightening approval standards, studios were disincentivized from iterative reskins and instead incentivized to craft enduring experiences of substance. The aim was fostering a climate rewarding innovative design over cyclical monetization schemes.
Meanwhile, efforts to shape healthier player relationships came into focus. The proposed Administrative Measures, scrutinized, revealed an astute pursuit of balanced mechanics that cultivate sustained user engagement rather than conditional addiction. Explicitly discouraging forced competition, reward conditioning, predatory monetization of virtual goods, and facilitating overspending rightfully prioritized quality over manipulation. Together, these initiatives recognized a maturing sector ripe for guidance towards sustainable excellence rather than fleeting averages.

Since 2018, the Chinese gaming industry has undergone a remarkable transformation. The days of low-quality browser games flooding the market are long gone. Their share has dwindled to a mere 1.57%, a testament to the industry’s evolution.

While a gap still exists when comparing domestic games to the likes of Riot, Ubisoft, or Activision, the progress has been undeniably rapid. The transition from “traffic-driven” games, epitomized by reskinned browser titles, to “content-driven” games, exemplified by AAA blockbusters, is a testament to this growth. Back in 2013, skepticism ran rampant, with few believing China could produce AAA games. Today, with Black Myth: Wukong, no one can deny the industry’s potential.