The Chinese Game Industry’s Journey to the West — Rui Ma and Rob Wynne on the Success of Black Myth: Wukong
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2024
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Chinese game studio Game Science has a hit on its hands! The game Black Myth: Wukong, an action role-playing game (ARPG) based on the Monkey King from Journey to the West, has sold extraordinarily well in China and is breaking new ground in the U.S. market as well. This week, I speak with Rui Ma, who runs Tech Buzz China and is one of the most highly-regarded China tech commentators in the U.S., and with Robert Wynne, an industry veteran with many years in China currently serving as COO of a new game start-up that's still under wraps. They share their insights into the strengths and weaknesses of Black Myth: Wukong and the future of Chinese games.
6:44 – The scale of the phenomenon of Black Myth: Wukong
12:01 – Rui and Rob’s thoughts about the game (so far)
17:23 – What Chinese players think of the game, and the difficulty in understanding its esoteric characters for Western players
24:23 – The appeal of mobile games versus console games in China
27:30 – The difficulty of attracting investment [or “How Game Science attracted investment”]
31:06 – Rob’s criticism of the game’s go-to-market strategy and its lost opportunities
35:46 – The party-state's response so far, and the politics surrounding the game
40:57 – Feng Ji, the founding of Game Science, and his criticisms of the gaming industry
46:01 – AAA Chinese games to look forward to
49:29 – The impressive success stats of Black Myth: Wukong
Recommendations:
Rui: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Rob: The Chinese TV series Escape from Trilateral Slopes (Biān shuǐ wǎngshì 边水往事) (2024)
Kaiser: Steve Stewart-Williams, The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Audible brings your wildest adventures to life, delivering heart-pounding thrills at the touch |
| 0:05.8 | of a button. |
| 0:07.0 | Take Richard Osmond's The Thursday Murder Club, where four retirees turned amateur sleuths |
| 0:11.8 | solve crimes in the most unexpected ways, brilliantly performed by Leslie Manville. |
| 0:17.1 | Ready to unleash your adventure aside, from pulse racing suspense to epic quests, from supernatural |
| 0:22.6 | chills to far-off romances, every story comes alive through world-class narration. |
| 0:28.5 | Explore exclusive audible originals, chart-topping new releases, and unforgettable bestsellers |
| 0:34.4 | that transport you from the very first word, because the next great |
| 0:38.2 | adventure is just a listener way. |
| 0:40.8 | Start your free 30-day trial at audible.com slash Wondery UK. |
| 0:45.7 | That's audible.com slash Wondery UK. Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China. |
| 1:03.0 | In this program, we'll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural |
| 1:08.2 | trends that can help us better understand what's happening in China's |
| 1:11.3 | politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth conversations |
| 1:17.0 | that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I'm Kaiser Guo, |
| 1:23.6 | coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Cynica is supported this year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, |
| 1:31.6 | a national resource center for the study of East Asia. |
| 1:35.2 | The Cynica podcast will remain free, but if you work for an organization that believes in what I'm doing with the show, |
| 1:40.9 | please consider lending your support. |
| 1:43.1 | You can get me at Cinecapod at gmail.com. And show, please consider lending your support. You can get me at |
| 1:44.4 | Cinecapod at gmail.com. And listeners, please, please support my work at Cinecapodcast.com. |
| 1:52.0 | There you will find, in addition to the podcast, the complete transcript of the show, a weekly |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kaiser Kuo, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Kaiser Kuo and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.