Chinese Video/Computer Games

solarz

solarz

Brigadier
tankphobia said:
No, we need another 10 pages about how hot the female characters are. I think a good game can stand on its own merit without eye candy. Good looking characters is simply a bonus, not the reason I play video games.
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Morrowind comes to mind. Vanilla character models were ugly as hell, but the game as an alien charm to it.

Another example is Sacrifice: gorgeous scenery, weird ugly characters, awesome gameplay. One of my favorite games of all time.
 
Sardaukar20

Sardaukar20

Captain
Registered Member
Blitzo said:
I feel like it would be more dignified if everyone would talk more about the merits of the game rather than touting it as a sign of cultural superiority or comparative cultural competition.

On the one hand I understand why people may feel that way, because the game itself clearly has a lot of heart and detail put into it all done in a well executed manner and it is the first to do so from the Chinese videogame industry.


But also, this kind of cultural representation is also not uncommon for most AAA games of other nations and cultures and those games are not all touted as some sort of cultural "win". If anything the fact that there is so much focus on this game, it is representative of the fact that this is the first proper AAA game from the Chinese videogame industry that is culturally cohesive and competent. Whereas in reality this is likely intended to just be the first of many, whereupon such games with cultural cohesiveness really would just be considered "normal" in future.
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This "culture superiority" argument is not about comparing the superiority of the traditional cultures in the East or West. This is not about Wukong vs Hercules. This argument is being brought up in the context of the contemporary woke culture in the West, where it had hijacked their society. We can see them manifesting in the Paris Olympics, and in the various media being created in the West. Watch any miniseries in Netflix, Amazon, or HBO and we can see DEIs everywhere. DEI have become mandatory in the West, and is already starting to sabotage non-Western cultures such as the Queen Cleopatra TV Series, and the infamous Assassin's Creed Shadows. Disney have done a poor job with the live action Mulan, so Hollywood cannot be trusted to tell Chinese stories. I'll cringe if Ubisoft decides to take on Chinese mythology one day.

There is a cultural war (or more accurately, racism) going on because the West have sent their attack dog journalists to try to sabotage a AAA Chinese game. IGN gave Black Myth: Wukong an 8/10 for bugs, while Cyberpunk 2077 version 1.0 got a 9/10! Dustborn got 7/10. Star Wars Outlaws got 7/10. How could those last two trash score so close to BM:W? Worse still, they actually attempted and failed to inject their woke cancer into BM:W. Off course it all backfired, but if they hadn't fired those first shots, this culture war wouldn't have happened. Had they not done all that crap, we would have been talking about comparing BM:W against decent Western AAA games like God of War: Ragnarok. Which by the way, got 10/10 by IGN, where it was called a "masterpiece".

BM:W is a good start for China's arrival onto the AAA games stage. Game Science have set the bar very high for other Chinese game developers. This will definitely raise the standards of the Chinese gaming industry. Nevertheless we should also control our expectations. Good AAA games do take awhile to make. I predict that there would be many "Me Too's" popping up in the Chinese game industry and even foreign ones who would try to capitalize on this wave of interest in JTTW mythology. Some less ethical Chinese studios might also attempt to do a Cyberpunk. So we might have to endure some mediocre games for awhile until the next great AAA Chinese game arrives. Still, I have an overall feeling that there is gonna be a great leap in quality of the next wave of games coming out of China in the near future.
 
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Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
jli88 said:
However it is. The fact is that entertainment almost always carries with it an export of culture, values, and mindset.

The western (or Anglophone-Anglosaxon) and Japanese gaming industry has been so successful that people have just grown accustomed to this export, and it's all around everyone. It's the reason why Japanese language instruction is still more popular than Mandarin, why Japanese (everything) is considered refined and expensive.

On the other hand for the gaming world this is one of China's first cultural exports. Heck, I have some Indian people around me wanting Wukong lore, many streamers trying to dig up details.

I don't think it is a "war", or a contest of "superiority", but Chinese culture doing well abroad is a hard (and soft) win in many ways.
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Sardaukar20 said:
This "culture superiority" argument is not about comparing the superiority of the traditional cultures in the East or West. This is not about Wukong vs Hercules. This argument is being brought up in the context of the contemporary woke culture in the West, where it had hijacked their society. We can see them manifesting in the Paris Olympics, and in the various media being created in the West. Watch any miniseries in Netflix, Amazon, or HBO and we can see DEIs everywhere. DEI have become mandatory in the West, and is already starting to sabotage non-Western cultures such as the Queen Cleopatra TV Series, and the infamous Assassin's Creed Shadows. Disney have done a poor job with the live action Mulan, so Hollywood cannot be trusted to tell Chinese stories. I'll cringe if Ubisoft decides to take on Chinese mythology one day.

There is a cultural war (or more accurately, racism) going on because the West have sent their attack dog journalists to try to sabotage a AAA Chinese game. IGN gave Black Myth: Wukong an 8/10 for bugs, while Cyberpunk 2077 version 1.0 got a 9/10! Dustborn got 7/10. Star Wars Outlaws got 7/10. Off course it all backfired, but if they hadn't fired those first shots, there wouldn't be a culture war. Worse still, they actually attempted and failed to inject their woke cancer into BM:W. Had they not done all that crap, we would have been talking about BM:W versus decent Western AAA games like God of War: Ragnarok. Which by the way, got 10/10 by IGN, where it was called a "masterpiece". It'll be unlikely at this point, but if BM:W doesn't get nominated as GOTY, then we can confirm that there is an agenda going on.

BM:W is a good announcement of China's arrival into the AAA games stage. Game Science have set the bar very high for other Chinese game developers. This will raise the standards of the Chinese gaming industry. Nevertheless we should also control our expectations. Good AAA games do take awhile to make. I predict that there would be many "Me Too's" popping up in the Chinese game industry and even foreign ones who would try to capitalize on this wave of interest in JTTW mythology. Some less ethical Chinese studios might also attempt to do a Cyberpunk. So we might have to endure some mediocre games for awhile until the next great AAA Chinese game arrives. Still, I have an overall feeling that there is gonna be a great leap in quality of the next wave of games coming out of China in the near future.
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My overall point to both of the above is that a bit of humility and a bit of restraint would be more healthy here.
The success of this game has is well noted now, even a week ago when it was released by sheer player count numbers. Let's dial it back a bit now.

tankphobia said:
No, we need another 10 pages about how hot the female characters are. I think a good game can stand on its own merit without eye candy. Good looking characters is simply a bonus, not the reason I play video games.
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That is also something which I think would benefit this thread, instead of gooning over female characters people find attractive.

It's one thing to acknowledge the good motion capture of the characters in the game (both male and female), but another thing to simply exhibit horniness which is what some posts are doing.



Overall, whether it's discussing the role this game has in the Chinese video game industry, its success, or specific merits of the game, I encourage everyone to do so with some dignity and grace.
 
Sardaukar20

Sardaukar20

Captain
Registered Member
Blitzo said:
My overall point to both of the above is that a bit of humility and a bit of restraint would be more healthy here.
The success of this game has is well noted now, even a week ago when it was released by sheer player count numbers. Let's dial it back a bit now.
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The reason why BM:W is still being hotly talked about now despite already confirming itself a great success is because of 3 factors: First, it had opened a new epoch in the Chinese gaming industry. Where for the first time, there is a Chinese-made AAA game that is globally acclaimed. Second is the ongoing of the political confrontation between the West and China that only spiced things up even more. Third BM:W had sparked a major realization in the Western gaming (and entertainment) community that wokeness is being universally rejected, and how much damage DEI compliance had done to their own entertainment industry.

Speaking about moving onto other things, there is another Chinese wuxia game in development. Looks promising, so I do hope that it also follows in the footsteps of BM:W for delivering on the hype.
 
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Rank Amateur

Rank Amateur

Junior Member
Registered Member
Blitzo said:
I feel like it would be more dignified if everyone would talk more about the merits of the game rather than touting it as a sign of cultural superiority or comparative cultural competition.

On the one hand I understand why people may feel that way, because the game itself clearly has a lot of heart and detail put into it all done in a well executed manner and it is the first to do so from the Chinese videogame industry.


But also, this kind of cultural representation is also not uncommon for most AAA games of other nations and cultures and those games are not all touted as some sort of cultural "win". If anything the fact that there is so much focus on this game, it is representative of the fact that this is the first proper AAA game from the Chinese videogame industry that is culturally cohesive and competent. Whereas in reality this is likely intended to just be the first of many, whereupon such games with cultural cohesiveness really would just be considered "normal" in future.
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Disclaimer: I stopped playing video/computer games quite a while ago, so my views/assumptions might be outdated, but here goes.

"I feel like it would be more dignified if everyone would talk more about the merits of the game rather than touting it as a sign of cultural superiority or comparative cultural competition."

That's a bit like saying, "I feel like it would be more dignified if everyone would talk more about the technical merits of Pan Zhanle winning Olympics gold in the 100m freestyle in a vacuum, completely divorced from the cultural/geopolitical aspects of the matter." China is the first country in literally hundreds of years to pose a credible full-spectrum threat to Occidental hegemony. BM:WK's storyline, mythology, setting, cultural references, etc. are unabashedly Chinese. I don't think the success of BM:WK, especially among Chinese gamers, can or should be discussed without at least a passing nod to that issue. Which brings me to the next point:

"But also, this kind of cultural representation is also not uncommon for most AAA games of other nations and cultures and those games are not all touted as some sort of cultural "win"."

OK -- and I *don't* mean this in a challenging or condescending way -- please list all those "AAA games of other nations and cultures" that were *not* from countries that were Occidental/Occidental-adjacent/Occidental vassals. From my casual browsing over the past few years, I don't recall a single one. Not one.
 
I

Index

Senior Member
Registered Member
tankphobia said:
No, we need another 10 pages about how hot the female characters are. I think a good game can stand on its own merit without eye candy. Good looking characters is simply a bonus, not the reason I play video games.
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Hot characters from mihoyo or some other Chinese/Japanese devs sell because most have compelling storylines and some flawed designs that speak toward them being someone's labor of love. Anyone can make hot characters in artwork.

Ugliness in some of the US entries ultimately are so ugly because they all follow the same mold, same corporate soullessness. They're bad the same reason AI art is bad, them looking like shit is just the cherry on top.

Many good games stand on their own merit without eye candy. Arguably Wukong included, as you spend most of your time looking at characters right out of Sekiro temple or Hell's Paradise that are rather ugly. It's the deliberate uglification of something that doesn't have to be uglified which is off putting.
 
siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Tam said:
The Journey West has made Xuanzhang look effeminate and weak. Needs constant protection and always riding on an animal.

The historical and real life Xuanzhang is the total opposite and a total chad of a monk to travel from Xian to Xinjiang, then Afghanistan and Pakistan, down to India on foot and back again, with a rigged bamboo backpack.

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Historical Xuanzang won numerous debates against hundreds of Indians. I think that feat is more impressive than making his way to India on foot and back again.
 
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