Black Myth: Wukong reportedly cost around $43 million to make – and this $60 action RPG has now sold over 20 million copies across PC and PS5

Black Myth: Wukong
(Image credit: Game Science)

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Black Myth: Wukong reportedly cost developer Game Scien⛎ce around $43 million to make, but it more than made that money ba🎃ck in just weeks, boasting over 20 million sales at $60 a pop.

According to a new report from the in China, the smash-hit action RPG had an overall estimated budget of "more than 300 million Yuan," per machine translation. That amounts to about $42.3 million USD by cur𒅌rent conversions, which is quite a bit lower than the $70 million budget previously reported bꦓy . 

Importantly, the scope of these figures isn't totally clear. This tax admin specifies total development cost, while Bloomberg reported on the contribu🎐tion from Game Science's biggest external shareholder and how that compared to the game's budget. Staff salaries, office space, necessary hardware and software, support staff, marketing, distribution, and plenty of other factors and resources can affect a game's budget, to say nothing of eventual revenue splits with investors and partners. We simply do not have the specifics there. 

The exact cost to make Wukong will likely remain unclear unless the developer itself shares it, but this figure still helps corroborate a loose cost range, putting Wukong's production into perspective against its runaway success, and against the cost of some high-profile games made elsewhere. PlayStation accidentally revealed the $200m+ development costs for 🍎Ho♏rizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part 2 last year, w𓄧hich added fuel to ongoing discussions about the ballooning costs of AAA game development. 

Currency economics aside, a huge factor here is average labor cost. Multiple resources and estimates suggest the mean and median game dev salaries in China are lower than in the United States, where The Last of Us studio 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Naughty Dog is based (in the high cost of living state of California, at that), and in th🌠e Netherlands, home of Horizon developer Guerrilla Games. 

Described as "one of the fastest selling games of all time" after moving 10 million copies in under a week, Black Myth: Wukong went on to celebrate passing over 20 million sales during this year's - yet another astonishing number with the title thus far only releasing on PC and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sony's PS5. With a price tag of $60, that a൲ll amounts to upwards of $1.2 billion in raw revenue, whꦗich of course gets taxed and divided. 

The numbers aren't the only impressive thing about Black Myth: Wukong's monumental success story, either as players spend a decent amount of time in-game, too. As of last month, fans were averaging a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:27-hour playtime in Game Science's action RPG🎃. This means that, despite its difficulty, people stuck through a huge chunk of the August release.

Check our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond for titles to look forward to.

Anna Koselke
Staff Writer

After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she's not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she's probably daydreaming about be൩coming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she's spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur's Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you'll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.