'Brave guerilla soldiers from the Eight Route Army heroically slaughtering Japanese occupiers' is one of the most mainstream themes in China and this trailer ticks the box for pretty much every single cliche/trope there is... the only thing missing is a playable Wu Jing as the protagonist lmao. The game doesn't break any precedent besides changing the medium from cheap TV soap operas to video game form. I get that this is baby's first steps so maybe the criticism is too harsh, but I'm trying to be honest; the trailer just doesn't look very good.
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Chinese Video/Computer Games
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
- Start date
This doesn't need to get attention internationally to be a mega hit. Just like Nezha 2, if done well, a Chinese WWII FPS can easily sell as well as Black Myth Wukong just with the domestic market.
Creatives really need to focus on what players want instead of what they want. Look at Detective Chinatown 1900; the movie is patriotic slop, but still sold massively well due to knowing what viewers want.
Lenzee's Wuchang this year was very frustrating, because they were so close to a massive hit but the main creative was too focused in his End of Ming Sichuan setting and pissed off the audience. If he set it in the similar End-of-Ming Koxinga Formosa, it would have been a Wukong-level hit.
I get that Chinese media/games can just solely thrive off the domestic market alone, but I'm just saying that if the Chinese govt and people actually want to achieve cultural soft power at the level of Japan and SK then they're gonna need to start allowing and promoting stuff with actual nuance and ambiguity that shows vulnerability, that's what earns you global respect.This doesn't need to get attention internationally to be a mega hit. Just like Nezha 2, if done well, a Chinese WWII FPS can easily sell as well as Black Myth Wukong just with the domestic market.
Creatives really need to focus on what players want instead of what they want. Look at Detective Chinatown 1900; the movie is patriotic slop, but still sold massively well due to knowing what viewers want.
Lenzee's Wuchang this year was very frustrating, because they were so close to a massive hit but the main creative was too focused in his End of Ming Sichuan setting and pissed off the audience. If he set it in the similar End-of-Ming Koxinga Formosa, it would have been a Wukong-level hit.
And correct me if I'm wrong, I thought Wuchang's poor sales were primarily due to disastrous optimization and performance issues on launch. Wasn't the Ming controversy just a vocal minority of nationalist netizens?
I get that Chinese media/games can just solely thrive off the domestic market alone, but I'm just saying that if the Chinese govt and people actually want to achieve cultural soft power at the level of Japan and SK then they're gonna need to start allowing and promoting stuff with actual nuance and ambiguity that shows vulnerability, that's what earns you global respect.
And correct me if I'm wrong, I thought Wuchang's poor sales were primarily due to disastrous optimization and performance issues on launch. Wasn't the Ming controversy just a vocal minority of nationalist netizens?
This topic of changing game/story to appeal to western audiences has been a debate in the Japanese game industry for a while actually. The conclusion was that doing so wasn't very successful (see Capcom in the 2010s) and to just make the game for Japanese and westerners will like it anyways.
Games for some topics like anti-Japan WWII or Wuxia just doesn't make sense to redesign to appeal to westerners. Chinese AAA game devs are still too focused on western console players. Like why are you making Tides of Annihilation instead of the AAA version of Wolf Warrior 2.
The controversy absolutely had huge impacts. Wuchang actually did very well for a first time studio selling around 2M copies, and the publisher 505 was very happy about it in their latest earnings report. But due to the controversy, Wuchang couldn't breakout of the core gaming demographic so won't sell 10M+ copies. Looking at steam charts, sales absolutely collapsed after the first day in China and didn't pick up even after fixing the performance issues.
Any attempt by Chinese writers & artists to appeal to “foreign audiences” is most likely going to fail because it doesn’t come from a place of authenticity and genuine cultural resonance. The same is true the other way around - Western game developers have never been successful developing for a Chinese or Japanese audience.
Develop the game YOU want to play and the rest will follow. That’s what America did and it is also what Japan did. Inspiration takes the form of you liking something & wanting to do it better/different, not trying to figure out what others like and developing that. You’ll never get it at the same deep level.
Develop the game YOU want to play and the rest will follow. That’s what America did and it is also what Japan did. Inspiration takes the form of you liking something & wanting to do it better/different, not trying to figure out what others like and developing that. You’ll never get it at the same deep level.
Creating nuanced and complex stories is not the same thing as pandering to Western audiences - Capcom's attempts in the 2000s-2010s is an example of the latter and not the former (specifically copying Western game design and art design styles) - Japan was already making deep stories and that's the why people like them. Furthermore, complex storytelling is not at all incompatible with traditional Chinese storytelling - the most respected Chinese literature like Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Lu Xun's works if you want a modern example - are especially known for their moral complexity and skepticism of power. It has nothing to do with selling out to the West.Any attempt by Chinese writers & artists to appeal to “foreign audiences” is most likely going to fail because it doesn’t come from a place of authenticity and genuine cultural resonance. The same is true the other way around - Western game developers have never been successful developing for a Chinese or Japanese audience.
Develop the game YOU want to play and the rest will follow. That’s what America did and it is also what Japan did. Inspiration takes the form of you liking something & wanting to do it better/different, not trying to figure out what others like and developing that. You’ll never get it at the same deep level.
Let me also clarify my stance: I never said anything bad about wuxia stuff either, I don't have a problem at all with the wuxia genre or Chinese audiences enjoying them. It was only really directed towards a specific type of modern patriotic media (namely the anti-Japanese resistance war) that I find to be incredibly stale.