Promotional material for Black Myth: Wukong Photo: VCG

Thursday marks the 100th day since the debut of the China-made blockbuster videogame Black Myth: Wukong, as industry observers said the game's sales revenue indicates vast market potential and an expectation for high-quality videogames. 

Liu Dingding, a veteran industry observer, said that Game Science, developer of Black Myth: Wukong, has greatly upgraded the game research and development (R&D) level of Chinese companies and provided the industry with a reference model. 

"Given the game's big success and market reaction, there will be more China-made videogames of similar quality to emerge in the future, further release the potential of domestic game market," he added. 

Launched on August 20, 2024, Black Myth: Wukong has sold 22.3 million units worldwide on gaming platform Steam, data from game market information site VG Insight showed on Thursday. The site projected the game's gross revenue has hit $1.1 billion. 

Game Science unveiled that the R&D cost of the game has crossed 300 million yuan ($41.38 million), according to Zhejiang Provincial Tax Service. 

Liu Mengfei, a gaming industry observer at Beijing Normal University, projected conservatively that Black Myth: Wukong earned approximately 7 billion yuan in profits after adding sales on the PS5 and other gaming platforms, and deducting expenses such as publication, promotion and game engine revenue shares, which is a remarkable achievement. 

Black Myth: Wukong has also lifted sales of game devices. On Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, from 8 pm on August 19 to 12 am on August 20, sales of game controllers saw a sevenfold increase year-on-year, game devices jumped fivefold and the sales of gaming graphics cards increased by 250 percent year-on-year. 

Black Myth: Wukong features 36 filming locations across the country, with 27 located in North China's Shanxi Province. During the National Day holidays in early October, the popularity of the game attracted 36.5 million tourists to the province, a year-on-year increase of 85 percent, and tourist spending reached nearly 23 billion yuan, double that of 2023, per the Xinhua News Agency. 

Liu Mengfei pointed out that Black Myth: Wukong has a simple cost structure. "The game's initial development investment is high, while its ongoing operational cost is low, resulting in a high profit margin in the end," she said. 

On the other hand, as a work that exists continuously, gamers who have played the game will often wish to visit game scenes in the real world. Therefore, the business model of using intellectual property to bridge the online and offline worlds is worth paying attention to, said Liu Mengfei.