The Chinese Game Industry’s Journey to the West — Rui Ma and Rob Wynne on the Success of Black Myth: Wukong

The Chinese game studio Game Science has a hit on its hands! The game Black Myth: Wukong, an action role-playing game (ARPG) based on the Monkey King from Journey to the West, has sold extraordinarily well in China and is breaking new ground in the U.S. market as well. This week, I speak with Rui Ma, who runs Tech Buzz China and is one of the most highly-regarded China tech commentators in the U.S., and with Robert Wynne, an industry veteran with many years in China currently serving as COO of a new game start-up that's still under wraps. They share their insights into the strengths and weaknesses of Black Myth: Wukong and the future of Chinese games. 6:44 – The scale of the phenomenon of Black Myth: Wukong  12:01 – Rui and Rob’s thoughts about the game (so far) 17:23 – What Chinese players think of the game, and the difficulty in understanding its esoteric characters for Western players  24:23 – The appeal of mobile games versus console games in China  27:30 – The difficulty of attracting investment [or “How Game Science attracted investment”] 31:06 – Rob’s criticism of the game’s go-to-market strategy and its lost opportunities  35:46 – The party-state's response so far, and the politics surrounding the game 40:57 – Feng Ji, the founding of Game Science, and his criticisms of the gaming industry  46:01 – AAA Chinese games to look forward to 49:29 – The impressive success stats of Black Myth: Wukong Recommendations: Rui: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Rob: The Chinese TV series Escape from Trilateral Slopes (Biān shuǐ wǎngshì 边水往事) (2024) Kaiser: Steve Stewart-Williams, The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.