Monkey Business: How are brands leveraging the viral success of Black Myth: Wukong?

Key Takeaways:

• Black Myth: Wukong exceeds expectations with its online buzz, sales numbers and favourable reviews, both at home and abroad.
• Dozens of brands collaborate with the game, including Luckin Coffee, Didi Bike and GCores.
• Local authorities, such as Shanxi Province also leverage the success of Black Myth by promoting the locations referenced in the game.

Since its release on 20 August, the “first Chinese AAA game” Black Myth: Wukong has been the talk of many netizens, creating Hot Search after Hot Search on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent. From the developer, Game Science’s employees being headhunted to the point they needed to add “not looking for a job” to their social profiles to the Chinese Foreign Ministry responding to the game’s global popularity, all the way to celebrities playing the game and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun posting a picture of the box of the physical edition, many hashtags have reached and even topped the list.

With the Monkey fever subsiding in the stock market, brands such as Huayi Brothers and Zhejiang Publishing have already seen their share prices drop. Shanghai Conant Optics was reported to have been involved in the game’s co-branded graphics card by Nvidia and enjoyed a share price boost before plummeting 11.93% on 22 August.

Journey to the West

Not only did the game top the Steam sales list on launch, but it also reached number 2 on the all-time concurrent players list on the gaming platform and passed 2 million on multiple days. On the first days of release, most channels streaming the game enjoyed huge popularity, making 20 August the “Cyber Chinese New Year” for many.

On 21 August it was reported that when combining all platforms including PlayStation, the game had already sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide, grossing over 1.5 billion RMB and had likely broken records 1 day after launch. On 23 August, it was reported the game had already sold 10 million copies, 4 days after launch. The topic “Black Myth Wukong global sales over 10 million copies” shot to the top of the Hot Search list with 50.37 million views. Although most players are Chinese, based on the concurrent data on Steam, there’s still great interest in the game in the West.

Speaking of the west, Shanxi (山西), the northern province whose name means “West of the (Taihang) Mountains” enjoyed a surge of popularity online. The province boasts being the home to 27 of the 36 real locations referenced in the game. It has successfully leveraged the interest in the ancient temples and mountains which appear in the game and also created several Hot Search-worthy topics including one that reached number 2 with 120 million views. Many hope the ancient architecture tours can boost the “cultural tourism” of the province to the height of Zibo, Harbin and Tianshui.

Year of the Monkey

In fact, since the game’s release, the viral phenomenon has seen more brand collaborations than most TV shows. From co-branded monitors from TV maker Hisense to clothing collab with gaming media GCores, all the way to JD.com delivering the first physical copy of the game to a player. Baidu Maps also introduced a voice pack from the game.

Out of all the IP collaborators, one is the most eye-catching, the Luckin Coffee team-up. This is the 18th collaboration this year for Luckin, and the second Monkey King collab since the Olympics-themed Havoc in Heaven collab. The collaboration is centred around a Black Myth signature coconut cloud Americano, similar to Americano con crema but with frothed coconut milk and lemon syrup instead of orange. It also comes with the regular exclusive cups, sleeves and bags.

What made the collab special was the 3D poster that comes with the 2-drink set. However, it was sold out almost instantly on the launch day on 19 August, 1 day before the release of the game. The Glastonbury-level ordering nearly crashed the Luckin system. Luckin urgently ordered restock but it will be another 15 days before people see them again. Yang Fei, Luckin’s CGO (Chief Growth Officer) also said on his WeChat Moments that the “masculine purchasing power has revolutionised our understanding, it’s better than 10 Father’s Days”. This reference is to the male gamer stereotype. But it also brings to mind some of the game devs’ past sexist allegations and attempted boycotts from feminist netizens.

Planet of the Apes

Didi Bike also launched a major collab with the game. Co-branded shared bikes have been released in cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Changsha, Luoyang, Chengdu and Shijiazhuang. The bikes come in several looks, with most sporting cloud motifs inspired by the Monkey King’s “Somersault Cloud” flying ability. As the official riding partner of the game, Didi Bike also released official T-shirts, cards and other merch, including a calabash gourd objet d’art.

Of course, gaming PCs, graphic cards and consoles are benefiting from the Wukong fever. As the game grows in popularity, it can be a great opportunity for video games, especially single-player games that are not e-sport programmes to raise awareness to the public. How the gaming industry will be affected by the success of this one game is hard to tell at the moment, but things will change now that gamers in China know what standard the industry can reach.