Tencent's "ambition" for the game industry is growing.
On the night of WeGame, Game Science officially announced the standard version of the game Black Myth: Wukong held by Tencent recently. When the news came out, many netizens commented and discussed it.
The price of 268 yuan is the "ceiling" of the price of domestic PC games in recent years. However, netizens changed their old "krypton gold tone" and thought that "price is relative to conscience". Industry insiders believe that this game is a "milestone". As a domestic game, it is one of the few 3A level masterpieces directly facing the international stage, and its price is in line with the Wilderness Escort 2. "It is said that the production cost has reached hundreds of millions of yuan, and such a huge stand-alone game project is relatively rare in the domestic game field".
However, some experts pointed out that at least 5 million sales can match the expectations of China's first 3A masterpiece.
What impact will the launch of Black Myth: Wukong have on Tencent? Can it make WeGame "turn over" successfully?
Tencent's old department invested heavily in producing masterpieces
If we want to discuss that Black Myth: Wukong dares to set the price at 268 yuan, we have to discuss the founding team game science behind it.
The core members of Game Science include Feng Ji, Yang Qi and other seven people, who were originally the core developers of Tencent's Douzhanshen game. As a large-scale multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) once developed by Tencent, Douzhanshen has received attention and praise from many players after its release in 2013. At that time, this game with Journey to the West as its theme set industry records for the highest number of online users (600000) and the fastest number of millions of users.
However, due to the popularity of "free games" in China, "Douzhanshen" is burdened with the practical problems of high investment costs, high revenue pressure, and the fast consumption of game content by players, which makes it difficult for "Douzhanshen" to maintain high-quality operation for a long time. At the beginning of 2014, a group of core members of Douzhanshen left Tencent and founded Game Science.
In 2016, Yang Qi, the art director, proposed the Black Myth: Wukong project, but the team thought it was too early to do such a project.
In the same year, Hero Entertainment invested in game science. Based on the experience of the past two games and the development funds obtained from profits, the team started the project of Black Myth: Wukong. In March 2021, Game Science released the first trailer of "Black Myth: Monkey King", in which the skills of Monkey King such as "riding the clouds", "seventy-two changes" and "bronze head and iron arm" constantly surprised Chinese players, and also made the trailer a hot search on major social platforms. In just two hours, the trailer easily exceeded the million broadcast volume of station B, It has also received millions of broadcasts on overseas YouTube platforms.
Later, Media First Finance reported that Tencent completed its investment in Game Science Studio and obtained a minority stake in Game Science. In this way, Game Science has obtained investment from Hero Entertainment and Tencent, two domestic head game companies, and has also accelerated the progress of game production.
However, Feng Ji once said that Black Myth: Wukong is the first work of three Black Myth games. He wants to create a "black myth universe", which is different from "Marvel movie universe". It shows that the team tried to build a unique IP system through the story of Journey to the West, which has become the focus of continuous attention of domestic players.
However, as a result, the production cost of the game is also huge. Feng Ji once revealed in a media interview that if players play the game for an hour, the development cost per hour will be 15 million to 20 million yuan. As a level action game, the duration of the same action game of Black Myth: Wukong is usually 10-20 hours. If the 15 hours are compromised, the development cost of Black Myth: Wukong will be between 225 million yuan and 300 million yuan. Previously, the foreign media IGN reported that the game duration will exceed 15 hours, plus various publicity and channel costs. Black Myth: Wukong The corresponding costs are only a lot more.
Tencent investment is making up for the "short board"
The so-called 3A game is not an industry standard, but it is an important reference for players to judge the quality of the game. 3A game refers to a game development project with excellent art resources, rich game content, high-level technical support and extensive marketing budget. 3A games are usually invested by large game companies or publishers, with a long development cycle, high costs, a wide range of target markets, and the pursuit of both commercial success and reputation.
In recent years, the well-known works such as "The Great Wild Escort 2" and "Eldon Fahuan" belong to the 3A masterpiece of fame and wealth, but such works have never appeared in China.
China is a well deserved game country. According to the 2023 China Game Industry Report issued by the Game Publishing Committee of the China Audio Video and Digital Publishing Association, the actual sales revenue of the domestic game market in 2023 will reach 302.964 billion yuan, up 13.95% year on year, and the number of users will reach 668 million, which means that one in every two Chinese people has ever been exposed to games. However, over the years, the domestic game player community generally believed that "China has no 3A", and even a variety of classic IPs such as "Fairy Sword" and "Xuanyuan Sword" in the minds of a generation did not meet the 3A standard.
Feng Ji once answered on Zhihu about Tencent's investment in game science. He mentioned that before investing in Game Science, Tencent said that it would not interfere with the normal operation of Game Science companies, nor would it take away the distribution and operation rights of "Black Myth: Wukong" or other products of Youke by virtue of being an investor. In this answer, Feng Ji also pointed out that Tencent could provide technical support in the aspect of illusory engine in addition to money, and was "sparing no effort in technical support", which might be what game science needed at that time.
In fact, Tencent is one of the major shareholders of Epic Games, which acquired 48.4% of the shares of Epic Games with US $330 million in 2012. Epic Games is a well-known game development company, which has developed popular games such as Fortress Night, and owns the popular game engine Unreal Engine (UE). Considering that Black Myth: Wukong is a game based on UE engine, Tencent naturally can provide some technical support for it. Therefore, Feng Jicai summarized that Tencent's investment can help it realize its dream. Furthermore, Tencent's investment is exploring more possibilities of domestic 3A technology.
On the other hand, Tencent's investment in WeGame platform has attracted more players' attention, and it is also a good investment to realize the debut of domestic 3A blockbuster.
Zhang Shule, the game industry commentator, said: "Tencent, as the backer of game science, although vowing not to interfere in the research and development of Black Myth: Wukong, selling this masterpiece on its own platform can not only better promote and distribute the game, but also create opportunities for its own platform to truly enter the mainstream vision. After all, the key to measuring the strength of a game platform is the number of premieres or exclusive masterpieces. WeGame in the past was clearly just another game distribution platform. "
"Meeting expectations" only after selling 5 million copies?
The reason why Black Myth: Monkey King is regarded as "price conscience" by many players is that, in addition to the well-known "Journey to the West" game produced by a group of Chinese people, another important reason is its visual representation of the game screen. Because in terms of graphic expression, the domestic games have for the first time kept abreast of such works as Wilderness Escort 2 and Alden Fahuan. Even after many years of launch, the price of the standard version of Wilderness Escort 2 remains at 279 yuan, while the higher version costs 429 yuan. Therefore, as a work of the same level, the price of Black Myth: Wukong is 268 yuan, which is considered by many players to be in line with expectations, Even some are on the low side.
In Zhang Shule's opinion, such a price may have the element of "charity sale", especially if domestic players do not have a strong desire to pay for buyout games, they can also play a certain role in market incubation through relatively low pricing. In addition, because "Black Myth: Wukong" has always been carrying the hope of the first domestic 3A masterpiece, the high price will also affect the reputation, and even if it explodes, it is impossible to make as much money as online games. Backed by Tencent, which is not bad for money, game science also has the consideration of choosing feelings rather than intentions.
However, such pricing still exceeded the previous standard "water level" of domestic games. A player told Sina Technology that domestic games were generally priced within 100 yuan, and even the popular "Ancient Sword and Strange Tales 3" in the previous few years was only 99 yuan, so the price of "Black Myth: Wukong" was still ceiling level, if not because of the high expectations of the game, I may really wait for the price of the game to drop before starting.
Zhang Shule believes that, according to the standards of ancient sword fantasy, it is a challenge to recover costs and make profits in a short time for a big production project such as Black Myth: Wukong: "1 million sales are a small explosion, 2 million sales are still lower than the public expectation, and at least 5 million sales can match the expectations of the first domestic 3A masterpiece". In his opinion, because of this, it is inevitable that this game will be released to the world. From the grand occasion of foreigners' party experience when Black Myth: Wukong was exhibited overseas, the overseas sales of this game may be more important, because "the consumption desire and consumption habit of the overseas market for the single 3A masterpiece are mature".
Editor in charge: Ruofeng
