Author: David
On August 20, "Black Myth: Wukong", which was highly anticipated by many domestic players, arrived as scheduled.
You may not play games, but you must have heard of Black Myth recently:
The first AAA masterpiece developed in China, the highlight of China's own game industry capabilities, the cultural output of the Journey to the West theme, the first trial by Xinhuanet reporters, and Luckin Coffee's keen joint promotion...
In addition, all Chinese players are eagerly looking forward to it, hoping that Wukong can impact TGA (The Game Award, the Oscar of the gaming industry), restore the reputation of Chinese games on the international stage, and find spiritual recognition for their own gaming that "is not electronic opium."
Domestic gaming industry practitioners, players and public opinion really need a "Black Myth: Wukong".
At a time when discussion about Wukong is popular, the cryptocurrency community is somewhat ironically absent.
In contrast, crypto games often shout "Mass Adoption", trying to show everyone on the label that I can get more people to play and I can solve many problems of traditional games.
Anything popular in the cryptocurrency circle can gain traffic. When Black Mythology did not arouse any discussion in the circle, but the blockchain game held high the banner of Mass Adoption, it just shows that:
There are few black myths in the cryptocurrency circle, and the audience of crypto products has never been real players.
Just like the meme comparison at the beginning of the article, when Wukong appeared, players were looking forward to when it would hit TGA; and when the in-circle game appeared, Degens was actually only looking forward to when it would TGE (coin issuance).
Different missions and positioning lead to different outcomes.
What happened to games or other products in the entire crypto industry?
Dopamine in the coin circle and endorphins in black monkeys
There is no product with the temperament of Black Myth in the cryptocurrency circle, which is largely due to a preset expectation when entering the circle - you come here to find dopamine.
Dopamine is a reward mechanism that gives you an instant sense of satisfaction and is cheap and easy to obtain.
It is a wild and disorderly place with no regard for one's background. Opportunities and dangers are everywhere... I am here just to make a quick buck in such an environment. This may be the naked thinking of most degens and even practitioners after they tear off the fig leaf.
Obviously, the black myth is more like a compensation mechanism for endorphins, which are secreted very sparingly and can usually only be obtained through pain.
"Black Myth: Wukong" is similar to the production process of the film industry, with a long production cycle and large initial investment. All resources and energy are focused on polishing the work for a long time. In layman's terms, it is a model where you don't open for 4 years, but you can make a living for 4 years after you open.
Of course, it is also possible that the movie will not be a hit and all the money will be lost.
Feng Ji, the founder of Game Science, the company behind the game, once revealed in an interview with the media that the development cost of producing just one hour of game content that players can smoothly experience would be between 15 million and 20 million yuan.
This means that the work must be carefully crafted, painstakingly crafted and carefully crafted, and after a period of painful trials, the finished product must finally be submitted to the market for testing.
There is no short-term dopamine feedback, and everything is painful in order to bet on the moment of delivering the product.
Image: Feng Ji, the main creator of Black Myth, once made a short video to mock himself, saying that he was beaten up for not making what the players wanted.
By comparing like this, you will find that Black Myth is the one that truly builds a project, with products first and profits second.
Most crypto games, on the other hand, put assets first and products later, holding high the banner of "solving traditional game problems", creating more problems, such as token death spirals, lack of playability, and Rug running away.
This cannot be entirely blamed on the game project party.
You are here to seek returns, and the investing VCs are here to unlock and sell coins. When the market is good for the game project, they receive a large amount of assets in an instant, and listing on the exchange means they will be blessed with great fortunes. Do you think they will still work hard to make games?
The entire industry is a dopamine-like behavior pattern. To borrow a sentence from the barrage on Bilibili:
"Everyone here is responsible for what has happened."
In addition, Feng Ji keenly revealed the current situation of Chinese online games in an old article many years ago, "Who murdered our games?"
"What's behind online game operators? Capital.
What do the huge number of frustrated people in China look like in the eyes of capital? They are the best and most delicious flock of sheep waiting to be slaughtered; they are super gold mines that cannot be found anywhere else in the world; they are perfect, uncultivated, and the most fertile virgin land.
Please remember that in the eyes of capital...corpses are its delicacies, tears are its condiments, it lives on these and never tires of them. "
Now, this sentence seems to be more appropriate to describe the harvesting and PVP in the cryptocurrency circle.
It has nothing to do with the work, everything to do with the product.
Utilitarians rarely relax and have a sense of mission
Looking back, it is indeed the type of circle and environment that gives birth to the type of works and participants.
What is the essence of the utilitarianism in the cryptocurrency world?
In fact, the editor believes that the cryptocurrency circle is essentially a venture capital circle with extremely compressed time and space.
What does it mean? Actually, you donât have enough patience and space to display your talents. In terms of time, most people who invest in you will not have the patience to wait for you to make a big hit before talking about returns; in terms of space, the audience of your projects is also extremely limited. Once you are far away from the core transaction needs and the narrative of large infrastructure, everything will be cold.
In such a circle, it is difficult for you to be in a state of mind to polish, concentrate on building and let the product speak for itself.
When you are pressed by investors about the time and proportion of token unlocking, forced to sell assets by the deadline for issuing NFTs, forced to prepare data by the key assessment for listing on the exchange, or even forced to close positions by contract alarms...
Under such pressure, would you try Black Myth, a luxury entertainment product that requires you to invest 2 hours at a time to experience the plot and action?
It is rare for a utilitarian circle to relax.
With breaking news coming one after another, the market changing like turning the pages of a book, and side events going on all the time, how can you find the time to enjoy high-end entertainment that stimulates your spirit and emotions? Just scrolling through the Chinese social media and reading the gossip is enough.
And when practitioners are not inclined or do not have the opportunity to try this kind of game products, how can we expect them to really polish out the so-called 3A crypto game masterpieces?
How can you expect a utilitarian system to be truly built where even when leaving or joining a job, one needs to write long articles to express loyalty, label oneself, and ask for feedback, and they want the whole world to know about it?
Everything is contradictory from the source.
It is difficult for utilitarians to have a sense of mission, and it is even more difficult for them to overcome opposition and withstand pressure to realize their ideal products. They can only seek a compromise between tokens and products, and try their best to give full play to their talents within the framework of the currency circle.
Works like Black Myth are precisely born out of a sense of mission --- it is not a top-down grand plan, nor a strategic foresight, but is entirely based on an innocent heart and difficult exploration with an unwillingness to give up.
It has less of the smell of money and more of the smell of a lone hero.
In places where there is a bit of money, Build will always be just a means rather than an end.
If you only think about means, you canât talk about polishing real entertainment products. Because entertainment from the heart requires relaxation and cannot tolerate any utilitarianism. The cryptocurrency circle requires utilitarianism and cannot tolerate any relaxation.
Therefore, crypto games may not be too entertaining to the point of death, but too unentertaining to the point of death.
The Ponzi scheme model may seem entertaining, but it is actually a serious and sophisticated economic layout, a proper arrangement of supply and demand, and a harvesting drama behind it.
It's just not a relaxing and easy pastime.
Conclusion
This circle actually never really cares about games, so it is normal that there are no works with the temperament of Dark Myth.
And if kol throws out a certain Wukong coin with the same name, when they learn that the small plate has increased by X times in the past month, they may follow suit and snipe, pretending to say that the black Wukong is the best in the world.
The source of the crypto stage today is still Bitcoin.
The success of Bitcoin is actually a necessity for idealists. The anonymous Satoshi satirized the bankruptcy of real banks in the founding block. Multiple mature cryptographic technologies were cleverly combined to open the curtain of encrypted assets, which coincided with the ideal view of the denationalization of currency.
It seems unrealistic, but it is actually a historical inevitability.
Now, the short-lived popularity or "success" of more crypto projects is more like a utilitarian accident. The game was just right, the liquidity was just strong, and the orders were just spread. Everything seemed to be an organized and premeditated arrangement, and a lucky token was rolled out.
This circle may need to do some good things and relax more.
Don't be in an encrypted environment and lock your heart.
Embrace Slack, applaud those who truly build entertainment projects, and applaud Black Myth Wukong.
