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Black Myth: Wukong is too mediocre for all this drama
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/23/24226834/black-myth-wukong-hands-on-impression-game-science
Journey to the rest.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/23/24226834/black-myth-wukong-hands-on-impression-game-science
Journey to the rest.
OK, but the context matters.
Part of the context is that most of those sales are probably to China, and that despite the big global numbers, it's probably not not the same level of success in the Western world as the steam sales imply.
Part of the context is that game sales have never meant a game is actually good.
But part of that context is that it's the first real effort from China at a real AAA, single player game, and the differences in government and culture are part of the conversation.
And part of the context is that China is a huge, largely untapped market for AAA single player games, and publishers are going to notice that and push games to do some of the things other media have done to be more palatable to that market (most think to the detriment of quality by western standards).
I'm not hyper interested in the game (I'd probably try a demo), but it's being talked about because it actually affects the gaming industry.
This is exactly the Hogwarts legacy story over again.
Some people got the idea stuck in their head that the game needs to be canceled. And they're upset that the game is not canceled.
In any case, I stand by my decision to almost never buy single player games within the first year or even second year of release. I save money and the worst bugs are fixed. If I keep seeing articles about a game popping up everywhere, I become even more sceptical about whether it’s hype that’s warranted.
100%. Patient gamer all the way. Single player games get bought when they get to the $5 discount range.
Not really on topic but wait just a gosh darn second.
This person is playing and reviewing (what might be called) the prettiest, most demanding game ever made, and they're doing it on a Steam Deck, on Low?
But still, the visuals are the main thing they praise about it?
I'm a bit surprised? Confused? Anyway that's a little weird.
Seems to be a theme with flops these days. "Oh you don't hate the movie, you hate XYZ"
Nice try marketing assholes. Quit your fake ass job and contribute to society.
That you like it, then it has a meaning to you. Gives you something to think about.
Massive artistic success: you're able to talk to other people about the art and they find it interesting too
That's... Better than what you said before, but it pains me that people think that's the full depth of artistic endeavor, to have given people fodder for small talk.
Art is a kind of conversation, but it's not small talk. If you've been following that conversation and you bring a new perspective to it that changes how everyone thinks and shapes the conversation from that point onwards, that is what you might call "artistic success".
On the other hand if all you're doing is trying to make money...
I think you're struggling with the mix of artistic endeavor and commercial success. For the vast majority of artists they do not exist independent of the need to survive and have money.
But the games industry, by virtue of it being an industry, needs to make money. So commercial success is the primary target.
In the envelope of commercially viable projects, people can be artistic, and have demonstrated great feats of art, but the vast majority of output is not moving the dialogue forward.
Think pieces, conversation pieces, emotionally evocative pieces, they're all part of the artistic vocabulary, but these are not bi-directional dialogues, the vast majority of artists are dead, and their art is appreciated in the context of the viewer. Hopefully the message is clear, but sometimes especially for abstract art, the message is deliberately ambiguous.
On the contrary, I think the games industry is struggling with it. Larger developers keep increasing their budgets, and the need for return on investment is making them too risk averse to create anything worth much of a damn. Meanwhile low or no-budget (kick-started) indie titles are making several times their investment while doing really commendable creative work. The profit incentive is self-destructive in art.
Nobody knows. People have been making art for several thousands of years and nobody has ever known whether it was any good unless it made a lot of money! Thank goodness we've cleared that up, now I'm going to go try and will myself to have an aneurysm
People would still be talking about it if it were a flop, nonetheless this game has sold almost 2.5 million copies on Steam alone, far from being a flop.
Wukong is not a flop. It's one of the most successful sales ever: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/100102/black-myth-wukong-is-one-of-the-best-selling-games-all-time/index.html
I haven't played the game, but the reviews are mostly positive. The only negative reviews so far are coming from hit-pieces like Rebekah Valentine, who is just a racist hating the game because it was made by non-white people.
Also it's a top seller on Steam.