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Success of Black Myth: Wukong Enrages Games Journalists

Video Games

| Aug 22, 2024 |

Black Myth: Wukong, the highly anticipated Soulslike action game from Chinese developer Game Science, made a lake-emptying splash when it debuted yesterday. Its first day racked up 2,223,179 peak concurrent players on Steam, the second-highest ever after the 3,257,248 PUBG: Battlegrounds scored in 2018. Today, Black Myth: Wukong surpassed itself with 2,415,714 peak concurrent players, which – along with its 96% positive user review score – suggests that the gamers playing it like it and are continuing to play while new people are trying it out, likely due to good word of mouth. It also means that, just like the mainstream media, games journalists are losing their ability to influence their intended audience; that hate campaign targeting Game Science and Black Myth: Wukong’s producer, Feng Ji (based on mistranslations of his words), has moved zero people to skip the game, and the journalists are not well pleased.

You can see their ire in the way they’re lashing out with angry articles lamenting the lack of diversity and representation in the game about an anthropomorphic monkey who fights monsters that’s based on a 16th-century Chinese novel. The biggest whine came from Tom Foley of Dot Esports, whose article lamenting the “lack of diversity” has to be read to be believed, although if you’re a guy, I suggest you keep some bourbon and a steak handy to avoid losing testosterone while you do. Aside from claiming the Screen Rant writer who downgraded the game’s review score because of its inadequate inclusion and representation was “bullied off the internet” for “doing their job” (How do you bully someone off the internet?), he moans about gamers being happy to have found a game that thinks there are more important things than adhering to a diversity checkbox. He also says he has encountered no women after playing Black Myth: Wukong for over forty hours. I haven’t played Black Myth: Wukong (no PS5 yet), but others have, and they’re saying there are female characters in the game:

So, either Foley is lying, or he hasn’t come across any of these women yet, which would seem odd if he’s played it for over forty hours, unless they all show up at once, like that scene towards the end of Avengers: Endgame. Whatever the case, there are clearly women in Black Myth: Wukong, and it looks like the hateful gamers who despise everyone but straight white men don’t mind this one bit. Shocking, right? But this is what people like Foley always do; they misrepresent any opinions opposed to theirs. Gamers don’t dislike diversity in itself; they dislike forced diversity that becomes more important to game developers than the gameplay, story, or characters, and they really hate being called racists because of it. This is what “woke” means, and I always define the word the same way John Nolte of Breitbart does: “Woke breaks the spell.” Diversity done to make a point – which is what Foley is advocating in his article – takes you out of the experience of playing a video game, watching a movie, or reading a comic book, and the story loses its hold on you. Nobody likes a lecture, and that’s what everyone’s hobbies are becoming. Black Myth: Wukong declared it wasn’t going to do that, and like Stellar Blade before it, it’s a hit.

 

Moving on from Foley’s piece, Wired published a hilarious bit of cope announcing gaming media’s collective triumph over Game Science… despite Black Myth: Wukong being a runaway success that almost everyone seems to love. Their reasoning is that the guidelines asking reviewers who received early access to the game not to include “feminist propaganda” and other political nonsense (which didn’t come from Game Science; it came from the co-publisher, Hero Games) in their reviews created a Streisand Effect that got more people talking about the lack of representation and calling out Game Science for being meanies who hate women. That’s super, and I’m glad they feel better (okay, that’s a lie), but do you think Game Science cares about a bunch of pissy YouTube feminists when their game is setting records? How is this a win for anyone but the Stuart Smalleys of the world who think telling their mirror how awesome they are is the biggest win of all? In fact, you could argue that this is the actual Streisand Effect; games journalists and other activists are trumpeting that Black Myth: Wukong doesn’t have the forced agenda they want to be shoved into every piece of entertainment, signaling to gamers that it may actually be good. There are benefits to being defined by your enemies.

 

And speaking of those regulations for Black Myth: Wukong reviewers, do you want another example of why a developer or publisher may issue them? PCGamer just put up an article about the trailer for Batman: Arkham Shadow titled “Watch a latex-clad billionaire punch out poor people in the debut gameplay trailer for Batman: Arkham Shadow.” Can you taste the bile in your throat? Who the hell describes a Batman game like this? Certainly nobody interested in talking about whether or not it looks like a fun game. This is what games journalists are now; they’re activists pushing their sociopolitical causes – which is allowing criminals to run rampant and kill whoever they want in this case, I suppose – rather than talking about the merits of video games. That article wasn’t written for gamers or for normal people who might happen upon it; it was written by wackos for other wackos, people who either honestly think Gotham City would be better off if Batman let the Joker turn everyone into grinning corpses with his Joker Venom or just think saying so makes them look noble. The freakout over Black Myth: Wukong further exposed who these loons are, and it’ll be funny if this piece drives up sales for Batman: Arkham Shadow, too.

Let us know what you think of the woke reaction to Black Myth: Wukong – and the game, if you’ve played it – in the comments!

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