China’s Hero Games shares what’s next after its hit Black Myth: Wukong

BEIJING – China’s first attempt at a top-tier video game has smashed world records, bolstering the industry’s global ambitions just a few years after Beijing’s gaming crackdown.

Black Myth: Wukong, an action game set in mythological China, sold more than 10 million units three days after its launch on Aug. 20. Ten days later, the title still ranked second by revenue in the U.S., and No. 1 globally, according to the Steam video game platform where it sells for around $60 or more.

“I think the next triple-A game is likely very close, because Black Myth: Wukong has shown everyone that a China-made AAA game can reach such high global sales,” said Dino Ying, chairman of Hero Games, which co-published the game and was an early investor in its developer Game Science. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks in an exclusive interview Thursday.

Ying said he knew of at least one such game under development, which his business partner at Hero Games has invested in. But he declined to share a timeframe.

As for how well Black Myth: Wukong has done, Ying only said sales have since increased by “much more” than the 10 million unit figure, although he indicated it had not yet doubled.

He said that in the future, the company’s game releases will have a global strategy from the start. He also expects foreign AAA game developers to realize how large China’s market is and tailor more features to Chinese players.

AAA games generally refer to titles with high graphics quality and significant marketing. That’s meant such video games have tended to come from companies such as Nintendo, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.

“China is a big country. We’re talking about 1 million concurrent players,” said Ivan Su, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. “China has 600 million gamers.”

He said the reason why China hasn’t previously developed its own AAA game, which are typically played on computers and consoles, is the years-long production time. “It’s much more cost-effective if you create mobile games,” Su said.

When Hero Games first invested in Game Science, Apple CEO Tim Cook visited in 2017 and was so impressed by the first game, Art of War: Red Tides, he gave it the front page of the iOS App store in 178 countries, Ying said.

But that wasn’t a commercial success.

Hero Games had already spent three years investing 60 million yuan (about $8.5 million today) in two failed projects from Game Science when the developer approached Ying and his team in August 2020 about Black Myth:…