Not to mention traditional Chinese culture is still a treasure trove waiting to be introduced to the world. Black Myth Wukong's way of doing so was too esoteric
How can you say its saturated when the only such game to have come out is Black Myth Wukong and PBZ has yet to be released? You can say that Chinese anime style gacha games at this point are saturated, but combat games set in ancient China are still a rich territory to be explored. Especially since lets be real, BMW didn't exactly do that good of a job promoting traditional Chinese culture to the world since that game was made for people who've already read Journy to the West and are familiar with the WuKong mythology. So yes, I do want more of such games to come out and build a foundation that would lead to non-Chinese being more interested in China's history and traditions the same way they are for feudal Japan.
Chinese game development is still in its infancy, so its a given devs are going to build based on what's familiar. Once the sector takes off and there's enough financial capital, and when the numbers do in fact show people are getting sick of traditional settings, that's when game devs have the freedom to experiment and explore new worlds.
I'm reacting to the number of such games in development. Like 70% of them are historical Chinese fantasy themed and feature Souls like combat.
Also, you can't separate live service games from retail games when they have similar gameplay styles.
Where Wind Meets, Black Myth, and
Wuchang has been out in China for a year+. There's also existing online games like
Naraka Blade Point and
Sword of Justice.
It's like everyone just decided to go and make a Souls like Chinese historical fantasy game, because Black Myth Wukong broke sales records. This is going to lead to saturation pretty quickly once these games start releasing. While a certain degree of copying and trend following is expected in the games industry, companies should realize that first movers' advantage is huge and that the key to securing phenomenal success is to be
First.
Why is Counter Strike still the most successful modern shooter? Because it was first.
Why is Genshin still the most successful anime open world game today? Because it was first.
Why is From Software still the most successful overall Souls developer? Because it was first.
There's certainly room for Chinese themed adaptations of popular genres (e.g. Dark Souls -> Black Myth Wukong, League of Legends -> Honor of Kings, Battle Field -> Delta Force). And they can be very successful. But one thing you'll notice in the Chinese game industry is that there's rarely room for two very successful adaptations. The original
can coexist with a Chinese adaptation (e.g. both League and Honor of Kings have their fan bases in China), but Chinese adaptations do not tend to coexist with each other (e.g. there is no Honor of Kings competitor). To survive, games have to find their own niche.
