Employees in China given time off to play new Black Myth: Wukong video game

[Fenton]

According to Malaysia’s Chinese-language news outlet Oriental Daily, Chinese firm Sichuan Muziyang Technology gave all its employees a day off to experience the new game.
An image purportedly of a notice from the company was also shared on social media, with Reddit users expressing envy at the move.




Singapore’s Chinese-language daily Lianhe Zaobao reported that the company made the move as a show of support for China’s games industry, and for employees to share the gaming experience with colleagues and friends.

Also, Shanghai-based indie game publisher Gamera Games reportedly gave each of its employees a digital version of Black Myth: Wukong, while Chinese game strategy platform Game Teahouse gave its employees a half-day off to play it, and paid them back the money they used to buy copies of the game.

Employees in China given time off to play new Black Myth: Wukong video game

Inspired by the novel Journey To The West, the game has raked in more than $73 million in pre-sales alone. Read more at straitstimes.com.

www.straitstimes.com

 

[Johnic]

So a government sponsored book cooking.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

So a government sponsored book cooking.

Nah, just a company or two.
We've seen similar things like this(Elden Ring/Monster Hunter Rise and I'm sure a few others)
Usually it's gaming or tech related smaller companies and they see all their young employees productivity going to crater anyway as their minds are consumed by a huge upcoming release, so they just allow them to indulge a bit for a day.

Or maybe in some cases the CEO just wants an excuse to do so themselves

 

[ToTTenTranz]

So a government sponsored book cooking.

Yes, the sales and concurrent players numbers have the smell of CCP interference all over.

This is China pushing hard to get into the single player adventure genre that many studios in the West decided to leave to die in their pursuit of GAAS gold fever.

 

[Bryank75]

One thing I wouldn't mind coming to the West....

 

[ethomaz]

I don't see any issue in that.
Actually that is a good move.

Plus government incentive their own made product to shine in the external market is something every government should do.
It doesn't matter if capitalism or communism.

If not even your own family support you then WTF?

 

[quest4441]

Tbh they don't need to do book cooking. China, Korea have a vibrant PC bang culture where students spend time playing games after school with their classmates. Cooking of books would happen if we saw some 10 million concurrent players on hour 1 of launch day. Their biggest game honor of kings has a mind boggling 100 million daily users.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Yes, the sales and concurrent players numbers have the smell of CCP interference all over.

This is China pushing hard to get into the single player adventure genre that many studios in the West decided to leave to die in their pursuit of GAAS gold fever.

I hope you realize that the game's daily peak on Steam these past two days has been at 14:00-14:10 UTC which is 10PM in China. People getting a day off at launch would increase the off-hours numbers not the actual peak.

No need to artificially spruce up the numbers, Chinese nationalism is currently doing that on its own.

 

[anonpuffs]

lmao people now concern trolling about the CCP when it's businesses giving their people the day off from work.

Holy shit if communism is giving people days off from work to play video games that sounds based af, what the fuck are yall on

 

[ethomaz]

lmao people now concern trolling about the CCP when it's businesses giving their people the day off from work.

Holy shit if communism is giving people days off from work to play video games that sounds based af, what the fuck are yall on

Yeap... they are even taking the side of the government supporting a company in their own territory.[
Like it should be the same in any place in the world.

If a Brasilian developer do a game like Wukong internationally I think the government should support with all his powers.
And I should buy it on day one just to support it.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

lmao people now concern trolling about the CCP when it's businesses giving their people the day off from work.

Holy shit if communism is giving people days off from work to play video games that sounds based af, what the fuck are yall on

As I said above, it doesn't pass the smell test.
The game's peak is at 10PM local time, a day off does nothing for that. Workers are already at home.
Not only that but the game peaked higher today than yesterday, are they giving two days off to these mythical night workers to bump up those numbers? This is the same as was reported with other games, like Elden Ring, a few smallish companies give the day off because the CEO is a Gamer™

 

[Systemshock2023]

Why the concern? Guess if a NATO/Five eyes based studio gifts copies of their game to their employees it would be a positive

But since it's Chinese, it can't possibly be good, there's always something funky right??

 

[TrishaCat]

That's kinda rad
I wish I could get time off to play video games ;_;

 

[ToTTenTranz]

lmao people now concern trolling about the CCP when it's businesses giving their people the day off from work.

No need to start getting hostile with the concern trolling accusation.


If you're ever so slightly involved in any kind of industry, you'll know the CCP does implement projects worth several billions to take over certain western industries they deem to be strategic.

They've done this on several industries. Local case I know is e.g. for textile process industries where a CCP-backed investor paid a lot of money for a local factory, send in people to the factory who don't talk to anyone, just film everything and take notes, then 18 months later they're shutting everything down and firing everyone because they have a carbon copy of that factory working in Shenzhen. Local clients then need to buy from Shenzhen and the suppliers also die out.

It's been a common strategy from the CCP for a while. The US and the EU have been ramping up sanctions on China deals for a reason.

The CCP has been especially successful on Electric Vehicles and batteries for automotive, promptly taking advantage of the USA's and Europe's green deals. We've now reached a point where Germany is building battery factories where all the equipment and machinery was bought from China, which is a complete reverse of what had been happening for almost 3 decades.

What's happening with Wukong doesn't sound like it's just sheer nationalism and support for a Chinese developer. It's sounding like a lot more is involved.

China is the country where the government imposed a 60-minute daily limit for children to play games. At the same time, 85% of this game's player base is Chinese. And it's a country where single player PC games aren't really popular, at least because most people don't even own a gaming PC (let alone a gaming PC that can play Wukong decently).




And just to be clear: this has absolutely nothing to do with the accusations of sexism or lack of diversity. If anything, that part is giving them a lot more western sales and the western studios had better pay attention to that fact.

 

[quest4441]

Why the concern? Guess if a NATO/Five eyes based studio gifts copies of their game to their employees it would be a positive

But since it's Chinese, it can't possibly be good, there's always something funky right??

Majority of the americans and other westerners cant grasp the concept of unity sadly. And the game is terrific its not as if its a Redfall lol, They made a game based one of their greatest classics ever written ofc they will come out in droves to support it. The indians will do the same if they get a game made on of their classics

 

[ToTTenTranz]

But since it's Chinese, it can't possibly be good, there's always something funky right??

The game can be good and I think it is. My comments had nothing to do with the game being good or bad.

The idea that everything coming from China is of bad quality is completely wrong nowadays. The Chinese industry has become the very best at many things, starting with electronics assembly.