Goldman Sachs expects that under the baseline scenario, "Black Myth: Wukong" will sell over 12 million copies on Steam, generating over 3 billion yuan in revenue. Under an optimistic scenario, it may sell 20 million copies and generate over 5 billion yuan in revenue, and this does not include sales on Tencent WeGame and Sony PlayStation platforms.
"Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong" has become popular worldwide, triggering a wave in the gaming market. The sales volume across all platforms has set a record, and the game might have already made a return on its first day of launch.
According to the national game bestseller list statistics, "Black Myth: Wukong" has sold more than 3 million copies on Steam. With the addition of WeGame, Epic, and PS platforms, the total sales volume has exceeded 4.5 million copies, and the total sales revenue has exceeded 1.5 billion yuan.
Regarding the popularity of "Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong", Goldman Sachs pointed out in its latest report that this marks a major turning point for China's console game industry and a crucial step towards globalizing Chinese games, which could stimulate investment in the Chinese gaming industry, particularly in AAA games.
In terms of sales projections, Goldman Sachs stated that with a conservative conversion rate of seven (from Steam PCCU to PC sales), in the baseline scenario, "Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong" could sell over 12 million copies on Steam and generate revenue exceeding 3 billion yuan, while in the optimistic scenario, it could sell over 20 million copies and generate revenue of more than 5 billion yuan on Steam alone, not including sales on WeGame and PlayStation platforms.
The reason Goldman Sachs considers this a turning point for China's PC/console game industry is:
This is the first time Chinese developers have achieved such a high PCCU ranking (peak concurrent users) on Steam, with "Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong" ranking third in PCCU on Steam, surpassing big popular games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate III.
At the same time, Goldman Sachs believes this is a crucial step towards globalizing Chinese games:
Although we can observe that over 80% of comments on Steam are from Chinese users, indicating a more localized player base, "Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong", as a classic Chinese IP, has taken the first step towards global markets in the form of an AAA game. Chinese developers' production capabilities on PC/consoles are constantly improving, no longer confined to mobile games.
There is a more supportive attitude towards China's gaming industry, particularly in exporting high-quality content. We have seen signs that there is recognition of the industry's potential value to exports and culture, especially before game releases, such as Xinhua News Agency's interview with the founder of Game Science.
In addition, Goldman Sachs suggests that this could stimulate investment in China's gaming industry:
The development of AAA games is a long and resource-intensive process, particularly in the private market, and we expect there will be more AAA games entering the global market in the future.
As for the impact on other companies, Goldman Sachs believes that Tencent benefits from Game Science's 5% stake and the popularity of "Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong", and in the future, Tencent/NetEase may continue to invest in high-quality PC/console games to compete for market share with their global peers, while Bilibili may benefit from video content and user interaction related to "Myth of Empires: Sun Wukong".