China’s global hit video game says yes to fun but no to feminism

Its central characters may be the Chinese equivalents of Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, but they are largely unknown in the West. Nevertheless, the latest blockbuster video game, and China’s biggest-ever production, had millions of concurrent users around the world within a day of its launch this week.
The phenomenal success of Black Myth: Wukong in gaming circles has delighted Beijing’s state media as an example of China’s “soft power”. “Wukong” introduced not only Chinese stories but also Chinese values and even tourist spots to the outside world, newspapers said.
Pre-sales, which began in June, reached 400 million yuan (£43 million) on Tuesday, according to Citi. On Wednesday 2.2 million gamers were playing it all at the same time on Steam, a big online gaming platform.
“This release marks a bold foray by Chinese game developers into a market long dominated by western … titles,” the official Xinhua news agency wrote in an editorial.
“Video games, which once bore the stigma of ‘digital heroin’, can also be a carrier of culture and knowledge,” the Global Times said, referring obliquely to government crackdowns on excessive gaming, now apparently forgotten.
But the game has introduced other features of modern-day Chinese culture to the world. The game’s advance publicity included Beijing-style users’ instructions: no discussing politics, no discussing censorship and — controversial even in China — “no feminist propaganda”.
China has a huge video gaming population, as does much of East Asia, and its domestic tech giants are also significant international producers. Wukong is published by Game Science, a company founded by ex-employees of the Chinese giant Tencent, which is a minority shareholder.
That is a typical model for Tencent, which can potentially now claim to be the most important tech company in the world outside America’s west coast.
The company, which did not exist until 26 years ago, became best known at first for the WeChat app, a Chinese version of WhatsApp, which also runs a payment system, and Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, both of which have succeeded by operating strictly within the Communist Party’s censorship “firewall”. WhatsApp and Twitter are both banned in China.
However, Tencent has also become the biggest-selling mobile phone and video game manufacturer in the world, not only through its own games but also by investing stakes in start-ups around the globe, injecting its own vision of highly competitive creativity.
Wukong is its own and China’s first attempt to create a so-called “AAA” game — one with Hollywood blockbuster-level costs and entertainment standards — to appeal to Chinese and western audiences simultaneously.
AAA games also rely on sales, rather than seeking profits through advertising, like mobile phone games, or “microcharges” — charging small sums for in-game add-ons.
The gamble with Wukong appears to have worked, attracting rave reviews on both sides of the Pacific, and selling at least 4.5 million downloads in the first two days, at a cost ranging from about $38 inside China to £59.99 in the UK for a deluxe edition.
The game follows the Monkey King on his adventures through a mythical Chinese landscape. The Monkey King — Sun Wukong in Chinese — is a central character in the classic 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West. The story is a sort of Robin Hood, Don Quixote and The Iliad rolled into one, serving as national mythology, religious and moral fable, and adventure story at the same time. The Monkey King, in particular, is a staple, becoming a central figure in Chinese opera, known for his rebellious antics, humour and strength.
The book’s theme of individualism and havoc within the constraints of Chinese imperial power has made it a highly political reference point on occasion — Chairman Mao sometimes identified himself with the Monkey King, and sometimes with his persecutors.
That irony seems to have been lost on the game’s marketers, assuming they were responsible for the rules accompanying the free codes through which advance reviewers could access the download. Under “Dos” was one instruction — “Enjoy the game”.
Under “Don’ts” were some standard requests, such as no offensive language or abuse of other players. But another said: “Do NOT include politics, violence, nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishisation and other content that instigates negative discourse.”
Also in the “Don’ts” column were “Do NOT discuss content related to China’s game industry, policies, opinions, news, etc”, and “Do NOT use trigger words such as ‘quarantine’ or ‘isolation’ or ‘Covid-19’”.
The reference to “feminist propaganda” has stirred up a debate on Chinese social media about sexism in the gaming industry, and indeed this may be the easiest way to explain the phrase’s inclusion.
Game Science was the centre of a scandal inside China after the first trailers for Wukong were released when internet sleuths turned up a host of sexually explicit and derogatory comments made in online posts about their work by its largely male founders.