The video game “ Black Myth: Wukong ” is a cultural “magic weapon,” a soft power export that’s raising China’s profile across the world. It sold 10 million copies within just three days of its launch last August — one of the fastest debuts in gaming history. It’s being called China’s K-Pop moment.
“Black Myth: Wukong” is part of an exploding trend as film, TV and gaming converge. Independent Chinese studio Game Science’s strategy is taking things to a whole new level. “Gaming is a very large business that, in some ways, is larger than cinema and streaming,” Hanish Patel, managing director and U.
S. gaming lead at Deloitte Consulting, told Variety . “People only have so many hours of entertainment time per day.
Streamers, games, social platforms, podcasts and more are all competing for a share of those hours. Franchises and fandoms increasingly operate across these media and can offer a connective tissue within a very fragmented media landscape,” he said. The global gaming industry experienced a reset after the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people started leaving their homes in 2023.
Estimates for 2024 are around $180 billion, which is projected to reach around $212 billion by 2027. Between 2023 and 2024, the share of theatrical box office revenues from video game-based movies rose by about a quarter. There are games-based titles in the pipeline this year that could massively boost revenues.
Movie companies in China are keen on this burgeoning marke.
