Black Myth: Wukong's first week of sales numbers are in, and they firmly inhabit "Don't take a big sip of coffee before you look at them" territory. 10 million units sold, which, as industry analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed out on X, "The Everything App," is a record-breaking performance that leaves some of the biggest releases of the past few years in the dust.
For perspective, here are some comparative numbers:
- Hogwarts Legacy: 15 million in three months
- Elden Ring: 13 million in one month
- Cyberpunk 2077: 13.7 million in one month
- Baldur's Gate 3: 20+ million in five months
- Helldivers 2: 12 million in three months
The only game that comes close is Palworld's 19 million players in two weeks, a mark that Black Myth: Wukong seems on track to surpass. It's a sales figure that lines up with Wukong having leapfrogged the competition to be the #2 most-played game in Steam's history by concurrent players. Before that, it was also the most wishlisted game on the platform after The Day Before met its ignominious end.
My personal tinfoil hat theory is that this game was meant as a way to test if the Harry Potter franchise was still commercially viable, like Shadows of the Empire was for the Star Wars franchise in the 90s (except that one has been confirmed, of course). It's speculation, of course, but considering how badly the second Fantastic Beasts movie did, it'd make sense for them to go after the millennial nostalgia market.
If "Ready Player One" was more successful as a movie, I think late Xer-early millennial nostalgia of the "remember this? Remember that?!" bazinga kind would have stuck around like a particularly stubborn wart even moreso than it is now.
I haven't seen the movie, but I've read parts of the book, and it's incredibly funny to me that they had to make the references more recent because the people who'd be nostalgic for 80s pop culture were too old when the movie came out.
I saw the book at the store and thought the cover looked neat, so I picked it up to skim a few pages. Holy fuck was the writing bad. I chuckled and threw it back on the shelf.
I was taken completely by surprise to later learn it was a bestseller and being made into a movie. "50 Shades of Grey" for 30-somethings.
Looking back, it's easy to see why it was a hit: it was slop for slop hogs. It said "what if bibeo bame, and knowing a lot of useless bibeo bame and nostalgia trivia means you eventually win the sex trophy and become the billionaire ruler of a dying planet?"
I saw Overwatch waifu shit in the trailers and my lack of interest somehow found even more lack of interest.
There's the weird chapter intro about masturbation or the one scene where they rehearse line-for-line a Monty python movie.
Reddit, the novel. Then Reddit, the movie.
The movie removes these scenes and is better than the book, which is not hard. I would not call it good.
The sequel book is worse than both though. It's horrifying, creepy, loaded with narcissistic excess and "poor me I'm too awesome, the poors are jealous NPCs" jagoff moments, lots of mind control/manipulation sex predator antics shown as "good", and has a "happy ending" that's very
coded.
I wonder if either could be worth a dunk read
I'd have a hard time doing it. There's a few online reviews, but even in summary, the sequel's a fucking creepy read.
Hated that movie