Transcript: The Chinese Game Industry's Journey to the West

Rui Ma and Rob Wynne on the Success of Black Myth: Wukong

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Kaiser Kuo: Welcome to the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we’ll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends that can help us better understand what’s happening in China’s politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I’m Kaiser Kuo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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In case you haven’t heard, China has a hit video game on its hands. It’s called Black Myth: Wukong, and it was created by Game Science, a team of ex-Tencent developers. It was released just a couple of weeks ago on Steam, which, if I’m not mistaken, is the world’s biggest video game distribution platform, at least for desktop games. And it has set all sorts of records already, which we’ll get into. The game is an RPG, a roleplay game, in which you play as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, the central character of the novel Journey to the West. Of course, he’s much beloved. He’s in Peking opera, in cartoons, in dozens and dozens of film and TV adaptations. Like most RPGs, it’s basically a long, long string of fights set in some breathtakingly beautiful surroundings with what I thought were spectacularly well-executed and imaginative cut scenes, the little interstitial story stuff you find in most video games where much of the storytelling actually happens and you watch and you don’t actually play. But they’re very much worth watching. It’s got a pretty steep learning curve, at least for somebody like me who’s kind of clumsy with the damn controller, but you have to learn all these moves. You basically use every button on the controller. 

The game, though, is huge, not just in China, but also in the West. And thus, I am tempted to call this episode “The Chinese Game Industry’s Journey to the West” because this really does mark the arrival of Chinese game studios with Chinese IP, Chinese aesthetics, the whole shebang, into the American and the global video game market.

Now, I personally know shamefully little about the game industry in China despite having worked in tech in China for many years. But to help us understand how Game Science made this arduous journey, why this title has enjoyed the success that it has, how it stands out from other games, and what this portends for other studios, I have asked two people who do know the industry, and know it well. First, our old friend Rui Ma, who, as longtime listeners to Sinica doubtless remember, was the brilliant host of the Tech Buzz China Podcast on our network for several years. It was an amazing show. I learned a ton from that show every week. 

She’s still going with Tech Buzz China, no longer podcast-centric as it once was. She’s highly regarded as one of the smartest commentators on the China tech scene. She joins us from San Francisco, well, from the Peninsula more precisely. And Rui, welcome back to Sinica. Great to see you.

Rui Ma: Hi, thanks for having me.

Kaiser: I am also joined by Robert Wynne, who has been in the trenches in the game industry in China for many years. He has been really on top of the whole Black Myth: Wukong phenomenon. He’s already shared some really great insights and constructive criticism about the game on LinkedIn, about its development, its marketing, and its wild success. Rob is the co-founder and chief operating officer of a new game startup that’s still under wraps, working with co-founder Ash Shui, who is a veteran Chinese game producer. He joins us from the great state of Indiana. Rob, welcome to Sinica.

Robert Wynne: Honored to be here, Kaiser.