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[StereoVsn]

New era folks. First Stellar Blade and now Wukong. There's more coming too as not only has this brought awareness to non-western games it's inspiring an entire generation of new developers over in China and Korea. The West has officially fumbled the ball.

Message to my Chinese and Korean friends, don't inject politics into your games. Please learn from our mistakes and enjoy yourselves!

Note that Chinese devs can’t help but inject politics due to CCP influence and approvals.

Did you see the list of items that they didn’t want influencers to mention? That also affects storytelling.

You just not going to see certain storylines at all. That said, at least they aren’t celebrating the usual woke shit that’s often front and center me for Western devs.

 

[Banjo64]

 

[StereoVsn]

Yep, the CCP censorship board enforces a particular kind of artificially pro-China message on Hollywood movies that want to enter the Chinese market. And if you watch movies made in China these days, they’re worlds apart from the Hong Kong heyday thanks to the nationalistic overtones, weirdly artificial pro-social moral lessons, and overall CCP influence.

It’s not as much of an issue for historical fantasy though. Wait until something set in the modern day world and it’ll feel just as off as playing Miles Morales riding an electric bicycle to go talk to people who declare their pronouns and sexual orientation when they meet you.

Yep, Chinese movies, shows, even novels and games got a lot less interesting in the recent years as censorship has strengthened.

Hell, they went for historical stuff when modern era shows got hit.

They can’t show corruption by officials and there can be no disparaging of the army, government policies, police, and so on.

But now the guidelines were to tone down / remove Imperial Court intrigue or show Imperial corruption.

Things are just bland, party commissars are everywhere, so creativity is getting worse as devs and publishers are self censoring. That’s why you will not likely to see a deep and interesting story since it’s too easy to run afoul of gov censors.

 

[twilo99]

 

[yurinka]

"He" is an actual data analytics company specializing in the gaming industry.

One that I never heard about until I went to check his personal twitter profile. And I saw hundreds of reports from dozens of market analysis companies, as it has been part of my job during years. (edit: I checked it and I forgot that one report they did is one of the many sources I had for a VR market analysis, and also forgot that I'm also following them on twitter).

One that, like everybody else, doesn't have access to know the sales of the Steam games and obviously -even less- doesn't have access to know the country where each copy was sold.

One that, like everybody else, can't have ready a few hours after launch a proper worldwide survey even if previously had a big enough worldwide group of Steam players to ask about (which I highly doubt it's the case). A survey that not even the devs would pay it because to know that only a few hours after launch is worthless.

That data is out of his ass. The most accurate thing he could have done is to go to the Steam reviews, see their language and assume that most people who talks in each language is from a country where that language is the main one or something like that or betweens the different ones that have it, the ones that would better fit due to the timezone of that few hours, which isn't accurate at all.

And well, also assumed that since it's the first paid Chinese AAA console+PC game and it's about a Chinese traditional story it will be more popular than usual in China. Which I assume it's a fair assumption.

At this point not even the dev has an accurate representation of the sales per country of the day one sales. It's too early.

 

[Barakov]

Every pub must be hoping their game gets cancelled now.

Hogwarts, Cyberpunk, ion fury, wukong

Lmao

Just shows you how small a subset those screechers at the purple website actually are.

 

[PeteBull]

Did it? What other major games have come out of Poland since? Outside of CDPR?

Hard to say what major means to u but over the years we got some good ones made here, indeed

Category:Video games developed in Poland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Depending on the genre u like im sure u will find some cool ones

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1029890/Layers_of_Fear_2_2019/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/324800/Shadow_Warrior_2/

Really no idea what genres u like, for some ppl those are solid or even exceptional games, for others can be avg or even total trash

 

[The_hunter]

Probably fake, but that's 484k outside china, not bad at all.

 

[PeteBull]

Probably fake, but that's 484k outside china, not bad at all.

Still no idea why numerous ppl keep posting it, showing its mostly chinese players like it would mean they arent humans or something so sales/games popularity doesnt count.

 

[//DEVIL//]

Still no idea why numerous ppl keep posting it, showing its mostly chinese players like it would mean they arent humans or something so sales/games popularity doesnt count.

It's not about whether the Chinese are humans or not. of course, they are, it's just a graph that most of the sales of this game are from China, which is understandable since it has Chinese folklore and I do not recall any other single-player game with this high level of polish.

This is of course assuming the graph is legit. with that being said, selling almost 500k worldwide in 1 day not including China is magnificent.

 

[PeteBull]

It's not about whether the Chinese are humans or not. of course, they are, it's just a graph that most of the sales of this game are from China, which is understandable since it has Chinese folklore and I do not recall any other single-player game with this high level of polish.

This is of course assuming the graph is legit. with that being said, selling almost 500k worldwide in 1 day not including China is magnificent.

Did ppl always not include country game/dev studio is from in other games too? Coz i remember reading gaf(not posting, was just reading w/o account) even back in early 2013 and thats first time such stuff is getting linked, reminds me that of that stupid pie chart of mario kart 8 sales(coz of bad wiiu sales) some "professional journo" made in his article
Edit: Found it, ofc was from polygon, not even surprised

[Polygon] Mario Kart 8 likely to be the worst-selling game in... what is that chart

An interesting article which just popped up from Polygon, diving into why Mario Kart 8 could possibly be the worst-selling game in the franchise's history. http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/15/5718168/mario-kart-series-sales Lock if old, or too slow.

www.neogaf.com

 

[Guilty_AI]

Still no idea why numerous ppl keep posting it, showing its mostly chinese players like it would mean they arent humans or something so sales/games popularity doesnt count.

Chinese market is kind of an anomaly. They're very closed off culturally speaking while also being huuuuuuge, with a strong gaming culture. This game probably got shittons of advertisement and hype within the country which made it so big over there, despite not appearing much to the rest of the world.

 

[feynoob]

How is that bad? Next time you are gonna tell me Japanese games sell more in Japan?

 

[feynoob]

 

[PeteBull]

Chinese market is kind of an anomaly. They're very closed off culturally speaking while also being huuuuuuge, with a strong gaming culture. This game probably got shittons of advertisement and hype within the country which made it so big over there, despite not appearing much to the rest of the world.

I think its very appealing to the rest of the world too, altho ofc i can be biased since i love chinese culture/history, small anecdote- chinese martial arts got over 4000 years of history

Chinese martial arts - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

According to legend, Chinese martial arts originated before the semi-mythical Xia dynasty over 4,000 years ago. It is said that the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), who ascended to power in 2698 BC, introduced the earliest fighting systems to China. The Emperor is renowned as a great general who, prior to becoming China's leader, authored extensive treatises on medicine, astrology, and the martial arts. One of his primary adversaries was Chi You, credited as the progenitor of jiao di, a precursor to modern Chinese wrestling

 

[LazyParrot]

That data is out of his ass. The most accurate thing he could have done is to go to the Steam reviews, see their language and assume that most people who talks in each language is from a country where that language is the main one or something like that or betweens the different ones that have it, the ones that would better fit due to the timezone of that few hours, which isn't accurate at all.

Well, if review stats is all they've got and nobody has access to anything better, then it seems to me like we should accept that estimate until someone comes up with something better.

I mean, Simplified Chinese is the best possible language a game could have in this situation - it's only used in mainland China and Singapore, and Singapore is so small in comparison that its contribution can safely be ignored.

And even if those numbers aren't 100% accurate... do you really believe they're inaccurate to such an insane degree that China somehow doesn't account for the vast majority of sales?

 

[Guilty_AI]

I think its very appealing to the rest of the world too, altho ofc i can be biased since i love chinese culture/history, small anecdote- chinese martial arts got over 4000 years of history

Thing is, given the way their government works and overall culture, a national product is far more likely to garner this kind of attention than external ones. Sure, you can still appeal to them, but good luck getting whatever connections Wukong devs had since this game could be used as a big advertisement for chinese cultural productions and the CCP by extension.

 

[poppabk]

Funnily enough, it being china makes pubs dicks get hard right away- new possible big and growing market with not much conpetition yet means business opportunity

Activision are probably making a ramdom China based cut scene for Black Ops 6 right this minute.

 

[PeteBull]

Thing is, given the way their government works and overall culture, a national product is far more likely to garner this kind of attention than external ones. Sure, you can still appeal to them, but good luck getting whatever connections Wukong devs had since this game could be used as a big advertisement for chinese cultural productions and the CCP by extension.

Maybe in time we will get some solid info, i remember polish cdprojekt red shoved breakdown of witcher game series sales(not copies, but revenue) and it was overwhelmingly north american

https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2022/07/en-cdpir-factsheet-07-2022-2.pdf

 

[Guilty_AI]

Maybe in time we will get some solid info, i remember polish cdprojekt red shoved breakdown of witcher game series sales(not copies, but revenue) and it was overwhelmingly north american

https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2022/07/en-cdpir-factsheet-07-2022-2.pdf

Thing is, the polish market isn't big. China is not only the second biggest population of the world by an incredibly large margin, but also one that consumes games regularly.

The only other country that can pull something like this off is India but i don't think they have much of a gamer culture there to begin with.

 

[Bernardougf]

Hard to say what major means to u but over the years we got some good ones made here, indeed

Category:Video games developed in Poland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Depending on the genre u like im sure u will find some cool ones

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1029890/Layers_of_Fear_2_2019/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/324800/Shadow_Warrior_2/

Really no idea what genres u like, for some ppl those are solid or even exceptional games, for others can be avg or even total trash

Lords of the fallen and Robocop were excellent

 

[PeteBull]

Thing is, the polish market isn't big. China is not only the second biggest population of the world by an incredibly large margin, but also one that consumes games regularly.

The only other country that can pull something like this off is India but i don't think they have much of a gamer culture there to begin with.

They sure made ppl notice the game now, with being top2 alltime ccu on steam, in my mind thats much smarter strategy than spending 40% of ur budget on marketing/sweet baby etc, instead its all build naturally from the ground up and spreads like waves

 

[feynoob]

Thing is, given the way their government works and overall culture, a national product is far more likely to garner this kind of attention than external ones. Sure, you can still appeal to them, but good luck getting whatever connections Wukong devs had since this game could be used as a big advertisement for chinese cultural productions and the CCP by extension.

Every country does that, but it's done by its people.

China has a lot of great culture, which would translate to alot of great games.

I would love to play RPG game as a journey to the west.

 

[Lord Panda]

Activision are probably making a ramdom China based cut scene for Black Ops 6 right this minute.

Looking forward to all the CoD Wukong and Journey to the West operators and cosmetics.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yep, the CCP censorship board enforces a particular kind of artificially pro-China message on Hollywood movies that want to enter the Chinese market. And if you watch movies made in China these days, they’re worlds apart from the Hong Kong heyday thanks to the nationalistic overtones, weirdly artificial pro-social moral lessons, and overall CCP influence.

It’s not as much of an issue for historical fantasy though. Wait until something set in the modern day world and it’ll feel just as off as playing Miles Morales riding an electric bicycle to go talk to people who declare their pronouns and sexual orientation when they meet you.

Exactly; government-backed agenda in entertainment is trash, doesn't matter the government in question. That's partly why I was worried about Sazzy Group's investments but at least, so far, they're letting companies still do what they want to do, not pushing pro-Saudi messages and stuff into the games. Might help the prince seems to actually be a big gamer so maybe they understand that tactic doesn't work if you want good games.

And like you hinted, with Wukong it's likely the reason there's no overbearing pro-CCP messaging is due to the work it's adapting, and the time period that work's set in. But if it becomes something set in the current era, and they try pushing it as a big AAA like Wukong? Well it'd get some side-eyes from me. Would that be annoying like the Blackrock/Vanguard ESG-funded SBI type of political messages pushed in a lot of Western AAA games? Maybe, maybe not. But it's still less preferable to games being devoid of either. Hopefully either the CCP has a change in leadership (who are less gung-ho about pushing nationalist agenda in their entertainment), or at least some Chinese studios can avoid the worst of that in their games. There's obviously real talent there and a lot of it, and I'd bet a lot of gamers there would prefer less overt nationalist overtones in their media, too.

Otherwise, yeah, it's gonna be a "different" type of weird time for Western AAA basically turning into soft extensions of CCP messaging for their games in global markets. That may cut down on the current nonsense with identity politics, but then it'd just get replaced with something else :/

From what i know of the creative industry there, the government doesn't enforce nationalistic agendas but do have set guidelines, mostly in terms of "morals" (stuff like no homosexuality), and naturally nothing that could be interpreted as a slight against their government or their actions.

Hmm...well it's a delicate thing to balance. I do think like here, in America, there are too many people who just endlessly trash on the country despite only being able to do so because of the freedoms America provides to them.

OTOH, I don't think any government should be immune to criticism where deserved, and I don't think any group should be banned from expressing themselves in an artistic medium (long as they aren't pressuring or villainizing other people who might not be interested in that work).

Then again i only saw small creations, i don't know if they handle larger stuff differently. I think the most likely scenario is that, while they don't enforce pro-CCP political discourse, they'll aid the ones that do.

Yeah, it's in relation to the AAA side where the concerns could be more pressing, because that's where the big money is. If it's something like the CCP choosing not to fund games that don't specifically push their nationalist messages...cool! As long as games choosing otherwise can get funding through other means, then that's cool. Which is already kind of something Sony are doing with the China Hero Project, I guess.

But if it's where games choosing otherwise are just frozen out from alternative funding routes, then that might become a big problem. Especially considering it probably wouldn't be so easy for those Chinese devs to leave since the reason would be quasi-political :/

 

[Guilty_AI]

Every country does that, but it's done by its people.

China has a lot of great culture, which would translate to alot of great games.

I would love to play RPG game as a journey to the west.

I meant appealing to China specifically, not the devs country of origin. Even if a polish game appeals to its own people, we're talking about 40 million people where only a fraction of a fraction will play the game. China has 1.4 billion people as potential market. Put the US, UK and Japan together and you still won't have half of that.

 

[near]

Did it? What other major games have come out of Poland since? Outside of CDPR?

I created a thread on Polands growing game development sector a couple years ago, CDPR certainly paved a way for them. I think China's one is growing at a faster rate and they're pumping way more money into new start ups.

 

[Guilty_AI]

They sure made ppl notice the game now, with being top2 alltime ccu on steam, in my mind thats much smarter strategy than spending 40% of ur budget on marketing/sweet baby etc, instead its all build naturally from the ground up and spreads like waves

About anything is a smarter strategy than hiring sweet baby. And like i said, the only reason this game is that big to begin with is that its: A) A chinese product, B) Tame enough that it can get the chinese government support. It's not a viable strategy for any dev outside China.

 

[feynoob]

Don't know if someone posted this

 

[BennyBlanco]

Yep, the CCP censorship board enforces a particular kind of artificially pro-China message on Hollywood movies that want to enter the Chinese market. And if you watch movies made in China these days, they’re worlds apart from the Hong Kong heyday thanks to the nationalistic overtones, weirdly artificial pro-social moral lessons, and overall CCP influence.

It’s not as much of an issue for historical fantasy though. Wait until something set in the modern day world and it’ll feel just as off as playing Miles Morales riding an electric bicycle to go talk to people who declare their pronouns and sexual orientation when they meet you.

Still can’t believe this is a real movie that exists

 

[CherryFalls]

Don't know if someone posted this

Should have read ''female myth: I have a dong''

 

[jshackles]

I agree with you, but I also thought it was funny that the "Simplified Chinese" language make up 103.03% of reviews.

 

[yurinka]

Well, if review stats is all they've got and nobody has access to anything better, then it seems to me like we should accept that estimate until someone comes up with something better.

I mean, Simplified Chinese is the best possible language a game could have in this situation - it's only used in mainland China and Singapore, and Singapore is so small in comparison that its contribution can safely be ignored.

And even if those numbers aren't 100% accurate... do you really believe they're inaccurate to such an insane degree that China somehow doesn't account for the vast majority of sales?

These percentages are weird, the total of adding the percentages isn't 100%.

In addition to this, we have to consider that there are a ton of Chinese speakers who live in other countries, mostly Chinese who migrated to other countries.

In the same way that there are a ton of people who play their games in Spanish but aren't from Spain, or that play it in English and aren't from England.

To know the real amount of reviews of a game in each language you can go to the reviews page of the game in Steam and see the total amount and the amount only for your language. There's this customize button to change the language.

Simplified Chinese (94.24% of the total):

English (3.85% of the total):

Remove from that some made up small percent for the Chinese expats living in other countries and here you have his estimate made for the tweet.

But reviews a few hours from launch aren't very reliable because only very passionate people make a review that fast. It's better to wait some days to make sure the servers are updated and specially that people had time to play the game more.

Pretty likely over time the percentage of reviews in Chinese -and the percentage of positives- will go down, even if not a lot.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Any Intel users getting this crash?

 

[ArtHands]

Square Enix right now with FF16 and FF7 Rebirth, watching yet another PC game achieving success

 

[ProtoByte]

Really no idea what genres u like, for some ppl those are solid or even exceptional games, for others can be avg or even total trash

I created a thread on Polands growing game development sector a couple years ago, CDPR certainly paved a way for them. I think China's one is growing at a faster rate and they're pumping way more money into new start ups.

Okay, didn't realise Ghostrunner and Call of Juarez were Polish productions. Neat. Not all of them are bangers, but hey. I know them all.

Yeah, this is clearly a larger proliferation of games in Poland than I imagined; I do have to wonder how much of that coincides with the lagging impacts of the Iron Curtain coming down as opposed to specifically Witcher alone, but its a fair enough correlation.

We'll see how it goes in China.

 

[simpatico]

Any Intel users getting this crash?

I've had one crash so far on AMD. Not during shader cache though. The moment before the title graphic appears after the prologue. Had to replay the whole thing. Luckily, it's an awesome prologue.

 

[Jesb]

It looks well deserved. It might be game of the gen so far. Or if not in the discussion. Thats not saying much but its nice too see a game that is showing what this gen can do.

 

[Little Chicken]

The game only costs $37USD in China.

 

[yet_another_alt]

Still can’t believe this is a real movie that exists

has nothing on this hidden gem

 

[Roronoa Zoro]

Sigh. Do we really need to apply feminism to everything?

Not to mention that they seemed mad about arbitrary "feminism" that doesn't actually improve the game in any way. Like they just want the most check boxy kinda lame crap and would call that a win lol

 

[generaldane]

Wait when was there ever any international pressure to make Black Myth Wukong more diverse?

 

[twilo99]

The game only costs $37USD in China.

ye impressive... all games should cost this much everywhere

 

[//DEVIL//]

Wait when was there ever any international pressure to make Black Myth Wukong more diverse?

I guess you missed the sweet baby inc drama .. where they requested to get paid to consult on wukong otherwise they would trash it ...

 

[pasterpl]

Hard to say what major means to u but over the years we got some good ones made here, indeed

Category:Video games developed in Poland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Depending on the genre u like im sure u will find some cool ones

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1029890/Layers_of_Fear_2_2019/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/324800/Shadow_Warrior_2/

Really no idea what genres u like, for some ppl those are solid or even exceptional games, for others can be avg or even total trash

I think Manor Lords is also Polish.

 

[pasterpl]

ye impressive... all games should cost this much everywhere

Good game will sell more at attractive price and ultimately make more money for dev and publisher. Still don’t understand that €70 pricing push. It in itself is killing game sales to some degree.

 

[pasterpl]

The preorder charts showed this was #1 in China and Taiwan with most western countries peaking at much lower, some not at all. The highest I saw was a #4 and #8. All other western countries were at numbers like #28 and such, or not even registering on the list (some European countries).

This is almost all China. Sorry to burst any “anti-woke” bubbles. This isn’t sone “win” against woke by western players. It appears to be a Chinese game being bought by Chinese players, of which there are many. Nationalism is the fuel on the fire.

It is because everyone is waiting for Concord /s

 

[Fbh]

has nothing on this hidden gem

Damn I remember seeing a trailer for this a long time ago and never looking it up.

So are Jackie and Arnie actually a big part of it? Or is it one of those bait and switch movies where they only show up for 10 minutes but then get plastered all over the posters and trailers ?

 

[PeteBull]

About anything is a smarter strategy than hiring sweet baby. And like i said, the only reason this game is that big to begin with is that its: A) A chinese product, B) Tame enough that it can get the chinese government support. It's not a viable strategy for any dev outside China.

Im perfectly fine with the above, as long as games are good from my pov it could be 10x more wukongs ;P

 

[PeteBull]

I think Manor Lords is also Polish.

yup, just its in early access/doesnt have review scores on metacritic yet ;D