十年寒窗無人問 一舉成名天下知
Ten years’ privation studying noticed non. Once an imperial exam winner caught all the fame.
Another “Overnight Success”? 🤔
In Jan. 2024, Palworld set a record of reaching 19m players in 2 weeks. On Aug. 23, Black Myth: Wukong has sold 10 million copies just 3 days after launched. As PC Gamer puts it: Black Myth: Wukong is already one of the fastest-selling games of all time, moving almost as many units in one week as Elden Ring and Cyberpunk did in their first months. It’s the first big hit of AAA game from China. Kudos to a small team: Game Science achieving a such monumental milestone, no other big corporate could. But how?
Just like other successful startups, Game Science is also founded by visionaries. Game Science was founded by ex-Tencent Games employees in 2014. They might believe there were better things to do than their jobs in Tencent Games. They just accepted that their time is limit early. So is yours because we are all mortal. Remember, you also have that choice to walk away from any good job when it does not make your heart sing anymore.
“A person’s creative life is limited. A person’s golden time for creation may only be a few years. At that time, you have experience, physical strength, and your brain is still flexible… This is your most precious time. If you don’t do something good at this time, you may not have any chance in this life…” — Yang Qi, co-founder of Game Science
The choice is also yours to stay for whatever reason. If so, why not try to make it better than you found it? As Steve Jobs inspired in 2005 Stanford Commencement address: “Your time is limited. So, don’t waste it living someone else’s life”.
Making Your Own Luck 🤞
“All happy families are alike…”, Game Science also did a few things right as other successful startups did. To name a few:
1. Right Timing
It’s just a matter of time that China will produce AAA games. Simply because China could have bypassed North America as the No1 game market. In 2024, China game market will reach $45B, only $2B behind No1. North America. Note: China’s has been limiting kid’s game time to 1 hour/day from 2021, and then curbing spending from 2023. It’s a nice surprise that Game Science is at the “right time” in 2024 to be the first from China. The luck may be seeded when it was founded in 2014. Since, the team has been “studying hard” for 10 years.
2. Easy Topic
Black Myth: Wukong not only has great storytelling, gameplaying & technical art. But also, Game Science cleverly builds it on top of the popular classical Chinese novel Journey to the West. They can “steal freely” a great IP to create their own. The other successful case is Dragon Ball.
It’s also easy to market. Because a lot of gamers are already familiar with the story, especially those in the east. The epic adventure, colorful characters, mythological elements, philosophical metaphors, humor and irony have been inspiring generations since 1942.
3. Great Levers
Sure, Game Science didn’t build a great game engine. Instead, it uses Unreal Engine 5. Nor, it makes a great GPU. Instead it gets all the help from Nvidia. So, anyone should buy Nvidia to “fulfill your destiny easier with GeForce RTX 40”. Against conventional wisdom, a startup has a higher win rate when only innovating the critical bit rather than multiple parts. Knowing when to build, and where to buy or partnering, it’s a skill not a luck 😉.
