TMTPost -- China’s first AAA game Black Myth: Wukong is set to achieve more milestones for the Chinese gaming industry on the horizon.

Credit：Game Science

Analysts at Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research are upbeat about the potential of Black Myth: Wukong, a hot title broke the Steam record of player numbers on debut. “We view this as a significant inflection for China PC/console game industry, as it is the first time a Chinese developer has seen such strong adoption and PCCU ranking,” Goldman Sachs analysts led by Lincoln Kong, Ronald Keung wrote in their note Tuesday, the worldwide launch day of Black Myth: Wukong.

Referencing data from key PC games with copy-sales model, and adopting a conservative 7 times conversion ratio from Steam PCCU to PC sales volume, Goldman Sachs’ illustrative analysis suggests Black Myth: Wukong could achieve copy sales of 12 million on Steam with more than revenue of RMB3 billion in its base case. In its bull case, the Goldman Sachs believes the game has a potential to notch a 20-milion-unit sales and revenue of RMB5 billion, assuming PCCU of 2.5 million and 8 times conversion ratio, not factoring in additional sales from Tencent’s WeGame and Sony’s PlayStation.

Developed by Tencent-backed Game Science, Black Myth: Wukong is the first triple-A game created by a Chinese studio and deemed as China’s most serious attempt to make a blockbuster video game. When a game is defined as a triple-A, it means it is as well-made as premium and quality with a large development and marketing budget, and is classified as a market now dominated by Japanese, American and French companies like Sony and Ubisoft.

Black Myth: Wukong has been highly anticipated both at home and abroad. The game has topped the U.S. distributor Steam’s wish list chart for months and amassed a record 1.2 million pre-orders in just over a month. On August 20, the first day of release, the game attracted hundreds of thousands of subscribers within hours and topped Steam’s most played chart, ranking No.1 amongst narrative driven games., surpassing major hits such as Cyerpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3.

As an action role-playing game, or RPG, rooted in Chinese mythology, Black Myth: Wukong is inspired by Journey to the West, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature that was frequently adapted into TV series, movies and games over the years. The new release has a natural appeal to Chinese players. The first trailer of the game garnered over 10 million views in 24 hours when it was released on Bilibili, a leading video platform in China, on August 20, 2020

The concurrent players of Black Myth: Wukong on Tuesday reached 1.4 million hours after its release and peaked over 2 million worldwide on Steam. The actual figure was believed to be higher because the game was also released on PlayStation 5, which does not provide a real-time tracker for concurrent users. There were more than 3 million Black Myth: Wukong copies sold on Steam and the total sales across the platform, Wegame, Epic and PlayStation topped 4.5 million units, Guoyouxiaoliangbang, an influencer of domestic game at Chinese social media Weibo, estimated late Tuesday.

Unlike most previous popular Chinese video games that make profit by encouraging continuous microtransactions while limiting production costs, Black Myth: Wukong is a one-time purchase AAA game, a Chinese video game industry insider surnamed Wang told the Chinese newspaper Global Times.It is unclear whether Black Myth: Wukong's business model can bring more profits, but the more important thing to Wang is that China is finally getting its own AAA game that can excite the world.

Multiple video game industry insiders anticipated the overall sales of Black Myth: Wukong to reach 5 million to 7 million units and the sales of the one-time purchase would be RMB1.34 billion to RMB1.876 billion given the minimum digital price of RMB268.00, according to  Beike Finance, a provider of residential property financing services.

While Goldman Sachs analysts observed over 80% Black Myth: Wukong reviews on Steam Tuesday come from Chinese users, indicating a more indigenous play group,  they hailed the game as a concrete step towards China games going global. Wukong’s ranking as a first for Chinese classic IP going overseas through the AAA video game format likely demonstrates Chinese developers’ improving production capacity in PC/console platforms, outside mobile games, the analysts said. They also see potential of further supportive stance from Beijing. There are signs that the Chinese government is recognizing the industry potential value for exports and culture, notably the interview of Game Science’s cofounder Feng Ji by state media Xinhua News Agency ahead of the game launch.