Black Myth: Wukong Sales Over 20 Million In a Month, Entering GOAT Territory

Damn Impressive. Still haven't given it a go. Will likely play at a discount in the future👍

Kudos to the devs.

Imagine that, a strong single player title seems to be what players want... And oh look it can make a huge profit too. this game took an estimated 70 million to make, at 20 million sold at 59.99.

I'll let you do that math... 🙄

A return to actual games selling well because they are just goos games is the future this industry needs. No predatory garbage, no obscenely bloated budget projects, no cut content to sell later,.... just good videogame'ass' games.

That's what gamers want, and Black Myth just proved it can still put up billion dollar revenue numbers. Take notes corpos.

Wonder what the sales breakdown with China vs the rest of the world. I say 15 million were probably in China alone. This is by far the big biggest game released out of China

To be fair no other game can really replicate this. It's just the right set of conditions if being effectively a cultural touchstone and the first of its kind domestically in a particularly nationalist county that also happens to be the most populous. I daresay even another Chinese developer could only dream of this kind of phenomenon happening. But many will, unfortunately, futilely try to clone it over the next decade. Brace yourselves.

I hope to play it with vr mods on PC once discounts start arriving though. Supposedly it's excellent.

@NEStalgia while I agree with you that some of the popularity of this specific instance revolves around the cultural significance of the Journey to the West story, what I think can be replicated and can prove to be the future of gaming is production budget.

Sony in particular is such a good example of just ridiculous budgets to make some of these games that in all honesty it may be that most people don't give a s*** whether or not you have top tier voice acting and high tech motion capturing.

We don't necessarily just want to continue to see sequel after sequel of repetitive playable movies. We just want good ass video games. I really think if you cut some of the bloat, and wasted expenses alongside cuttingndown the insane exec level staff salaries of these developers, you could get these games down to 100 million or less budget and make so much more profit
If what you put out is just good, and fun to play, it will sell well. Black Myth, hell divers, space marine, and many others prove this.

@NEStalgia It turns out all you have to do is have the backing of possibly the largest industrial complex that the human race has ever seen in order to score a hit. Who knew?

Everyone’s saying “oh wow look at all these dumb companies not realizing they can make tons from single player games”. That’s not the lesson that’s gonna be learned here, there’s been countless of games that have proven that idea in the first place time and time again. There’s tons of good games that unfortunately don’t make the money they deserve. What companies are gonna learn, however, is to target the Chinese market more. The scope of this games success in China is unfathomable. Expect a lot more attempts from companies to break into the market.

It does show the potential of the chinese market. But, at what cost?
I don't like the importance that is being given to this game and nothing good will come of it.

Just finished this 100% today. GOTY hands down these devs did an excellent job across the board. Long without being repetitive, tons of enemy variety, everything you do is rewarding etc. on top of maybe the best combat system of this generation.

The story is so muddy at this point but hopefully the team aren’t weirdos because the future is extremely bright for these guys.

@Deoxyr1bose It’s a shame that the lesson isn’t to just create games for specific markets. Sony used to make a bunch targeting the European market with European devs but everything’s too American now. I want The Getaway except it’s slightly more playable!

There's a lot of lessons to be learned here. Hyping graphics sell copies. China is at the cusp of being a gaming giant. The PC market is massive now, almost putting the existence of consoles into question. There's not enough Journey to the West adaptations. Contemporary gamers barely care about level design.

My cynical ass wonders why what looks like a decent action game with high production values gets to be so successful. But I'd certainly rather this blow up the charts than yet another military shooter.

@Deoxyr1bose The upshot for PC gamers is an even greater focus on PC though 😂. But you KNOW the games will start pandering to replicate cultural relevance in China to duplicate this and it'll get cringe.

@Sequel ohh yeah! The vr mods were there on launch week lol! Haven't run it myself, but between this, hzd, hfw, got, elden ring, there's a heck of a lot of amazing mods for big games in VR. A lot of them you do need to subscribe for $10 to Luke Ross' Patreon because he has to patch them every game patch.

Pimax was heavily promoting the mod for wukong and their recommended settings etc. They're a Chinese hmd mfr, so this game is huge for them!

I think this one just uses uevr, not a luke Ross mid.

@KundaliniRising333 Weeell, while I agree in concept, the difference is if course Sony places is studios the the absolute most expensive places on earth to do anything and wants customers to pay. Seattle? Northern California? Places where making 6 figures as a janitor leaves you homeless? Meanwhile Working is made in China where the whole economy is based on cheap everything and low pay. So unless sie moves ND to Guangdong they can't do that. And if GS was in Seattle, Wukong would cost $300m. I guess it goes with their premium image. When Junior intern animators make six figures because it's basically minimum wage where they're building studios, no kidding their budgets are high...

@NEStalgia ahhh good point on wage disparities. Didn't think about that. 👍Especially poignant considering I live near one of those studios in an overpriced cost of living area. However wages have not kept up with that cost of living in fact it's basically flatlined in comparison so unless you're at the upper echelons of the corporate structure like you're just not getting the money that you're thinking. there's no 150k janitors here there are janitors making the same wages that they probably make in a much less affluent area and yet they are expected to somehow be able to afford even just food and housing with their 30 to 50K salaries. So. You aren't wrong on why the they are homeless or bunking with a dozen people in one house...

But I do get your point I just find it hard to believe that they can't cut at least half those budgets I mean come on 300 million dollars to make a Spider-Man game Get the f*** out of here Lol. There is no way that a video game should cost a similar amount or more than a full big budget Blockbuster movie... at least not with what we are seeing being put out at that price point.

@KundaliniRising333 Yeah, and Sony in particular keeps doing this luxury office thing like that new guerilla studio. They seem to overpay for everything. Though that's Jim and Herman. The Japanese don't do that stuff.

Rockstar spending what over a billion? On one video game? On WHAT?

Sony's going to quadruple down so hard on Chinese game development you'll probably be able to use your PS6 to monitor your social credit score.

@Ralizah And charge iap against it!

@RoomWithaMoose "The PC market is massive now, almost putting the existence of consoles into question." Not at all. The pc user base has been massive for decades and it will continue to co-exist along side console gamers. Consoles are never going away because there are too many gamers that find the convenience of the plug and play nature much easier to contend with. In fact I'd argue the opposite in that with modern consoles hitting high quality graphics and sound along with much faster loading times are more likely to be even more of a lure to gamers. A top tier gaming rig is always going to beat out the consoles but at a much,much higher entry price point than current consoles..even the ps5 Pro.

Awesome game and I'm loving every minute. I'm only about half way through chapter 4 as like with elden ring I'm just taking my time and trying to complete everything in each chapter before moving on to the next. Well deserved praise and an excellent debut title from the devs.

Other games do not have a big government to help them promote the games. (PS: I did not play the game so I can't tell whether it is a good game or not.)

Prediction: In 5 years time we're going to see a clumsy Western made Romance of the Three Kingdoms game.

What would actually be hype would be a Legend of the Condor Heroes adaptation.

@Nowings There was America's Army back in the late 90s that was developed by the US army..... Didn't sell great though 😂

@Northern_munkey At the prices people are paying on eBay for those 30th pros my monster rig reels like a bargain .

I totally agree @jrt87, there are two notions that reviewers propagated that lead me to question if they even played the game.
1. It's a boss rush. No it isn't by any stretch, large spiderweb-like areas, with loop backs, NPC's and secrets.
2. It's not as difficult as a soulslike. I disagree, it has the same variance of difficulty you see in souls. White Noble was a savage (I'm only in Chapter 2) and then you have plenty of bosses on a sliding scale from there - Tiger Vanguard was a sturdy challenge too. If you consider DS1 it similarly has bosses you can beat first time (an obvious example being Pinwheel, but even Taurus Demon or Moonlight Butterfly, fit that brief).

@themightyant and then they fired all the top talent and replaced them with interns that cost as much as top talent elsewhere and then trained them be remaking existing games and then charged customers to make back the loss. Meanwhile Game Science starts up in the middle of nowhere and sells them under the table...... Just sayin'......

The glory days of interesting and experimental games that didn't cost 300m to make didn't come from hubs of "top talent", it came from a few people with an idea and a garage and Japanese modest pay scales. Following Hollywood and the "top talent" route is the whole problem. And it's led to the same creative vacuum in both industries. Plus Taylor Swift

@KundaliniRising333 I agree that we need more good games and that we need them to sell well, but it doesn't always work. Astro bot is a fantastic game, and love letter to playstation, but it sounds like it's not selling particularly well.

I know its different because ots only on one console so I'm not expecting it to sell 20 mill. But if its not between 5 or 10 mill by tye ned of the year it's very worrying, and it may mean sony continue to just make single player story games, which would be a shame considering the creativity some of their teams have to offer

Chinese gamers purchased it in their millions, i wasted £55 on this game, boss fights were hard and repetitive, not too shabby to be fair but for me it's a 6/10 monkey business

@RoomWithaMoose There's about 300 million current consoles out there. There's precisely zero threatening that market.

Very, very surprised that there was no announcement of a PS5PRO patch coming soon.
Cause it really seems that this game can benefit a lot from the new horsepower that is available on the Pro console.

Also, any news on a physical edition ?

Move over western (and french) developers, china (and korea) devs is here to stay 😃

N.i.c.e.Thats impressive.black myth wukong is a instant classic hit.word up son

@Americansamurai1 can only imagine the numbers from 1.4 billion Chinese; actual Chinese this is after all their great mythical monkey.

@Bobobiwan have you played it? Yeah I guess you can say "no but I've heard..." which just dosnt cut it I'm afraid. The so called performance issues are so over exaggerated it's almost a meme. I've encountered very few issues and the few I have are nothing to make me start frothing at the mouth. Maybe try playing it as it's a corker..

See that, Sony? See how a SINGLEPLAYER game does this well over the course of a few weeks.. while your live service games keep failing and failing, with Concord failing within two weeks? Take note.

(And yes, I'm fully aware Helldivers did well.. but that's more of an exception to the rule).

How is it running on the PS5 i know it had some hiccups at launch.

@wiiware careful extolling the virtues of China as you will have "he who must be agreed with" adding you to his ignore list.

@pharos_haven it plays extremely well and as stated previously all issues were blown out of proportion.

@Northern_munkey Oh, I wasn't talking about any issues in particular, but just of the fact of being able to play it in Fidelity mode - cause it's a gorgeous game - at 60 fps.

The only thing that's preventing my hand to go play this game right now is the "digital only" thing, for the moment. If I remember correctly, they told at release that a physical edition will come in time. That's what I'm waiting.

Cause I really, really want to play it ! It's Alan Wake 2 all over again, it seems ^^

@Bobobiwan I'm sure you'll like it when you eventually get to play it.

@KundaliniRising333 I think China has reduced regional prices, so it's not 59.90 everywhere

@Northern_munkey For sure ! I'm already in love with that game !

@Northern_munkey I go where the good games are, it's on japanese back on psone and ps2, then it's on western side on ps3/xbox 360 era, it's both on japan and western side on ps4. Now on ps5, it seems for single player story games, the western AAA games is no good, the japanese/chinese/korea is where the good games are.

I'm only talking about single player AAA games of course.

lol majority sales on PC. PS5 has sold less than 10k copies I bet.

Love the comments seething about China. Get used to it, China is the future! Their Ws will keep rolling in and the western Ls will only balloon in size.

Even GTA 6 will have to work to reach 20 million in a month. Xbox is near dead and it's not releasing on PC, so its pretty much just the ps5 for it.

@themightyant totally agree, that's been my point exactly.

Granted it doesn't hurt that it actually is a good game, but if it was a different theme from a different country it'd be forgotten fast.