Latest news with #BlackMyth:Wukong
Straits Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
China's Revenge On Gold Diggers video game fuels sexism debate
Revenge On Gold Diggers, a full-motion video interactive game, is now among the country's top 10 best-selling titles on Steam. PHOTO: REUTERS BEIJING – One of China's best-selling new games has renewed a debate around sensitive gender issues in a country grappling with plunging marriage rates. Revenge On Gold Diggers, a full-motion video interactive game, soared to the top of Steam's revenue charts in China since its launch a week ago. Selling at US$6 (S$7.65) apiece, it is now among the country's top 10 best-selling titles on the PC platform, surpassing enduring hits like Black Myth: Wukong and Baldur's Gate 3. Developed by a little-known indie studio, the game unfolds as a series of choose-your-own-adventure episodes, where the player acts as a male protagonist interacting with five women. The female characters range from a live-streamer to a coffee shop barista, each of them exploiting their male counterparts for money. One of the women in the game boasts about her manipulation by saying, 'He's more obedient than a dog.' These storylines have stirred controversy on China's social networks, with critics slamming the game as a sexist fantasy. The developer responded by renaming the title to the more palatable Emotional Fraud Simulator while keeping all content intact. Opinions have been split. A state newspaper in Beijing opined this week that the game helps 'creatively strengthen young people's awareness of safety in romantic relationships', with other official outlets reposting the sentiment. Marriage numbers in China have been falling for most of the past decade and plunged to a record low last year – compounding a demographic crisis that's proliferating across the world's second-largest economy. Facing job insecurity and uncertain futures, young people are finding solace in things like video games, pet ownership and trendy collectibles like Labubu. Revenge On Gold Diggers has also been compared by Chinese social-media users and local media such as Sixth Tone with a recent real-life tragedy. In 2024 , a young gaming influencer nicknamed 'Fat Cat' killed himself and the internet attacked his girlfriend. A legion of Chinese indie games studios are trying to make it on Steam in the romance simulation genre, after 2024's surprise hit Love Is All Around. Featuring live-action footage, these games typically portray a male protagonist romantically pursuing multiple women and offer varying endings based on a player's dialogue choices. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Engadget
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Engadget
The Steam Summer Sale is live with a fresh batch of big discounts
Get ready for your game library to grow, because the Steam Summer Sale is open and ready for business. The promotion runs through July 11, so you've got plenty of time to peruse all of the available deals, but there are a couple fun highlights in this season's selections. For starters, two likely contenders for 2025 game of the year are on sale. You can pick up the spectacular puzzle game Blue Prince for 15 percent off or about $25, and the lush Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a slight discount of 10 percent, which puts it at $45. I'm sad they didn't go thematic and make it $33, but even a small price cut is nice for games this recent. A couple other newish releases are available at smaller discounts. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is 20 percent off, as is Black Myth: Wukong , while Civilization VII is 15 percent off. The Silent Hill 2 remake is down to $42 thanks to a 40 percent cut. Most of the biggest deals are on older titles. For instance, if you don't already own the excellent Doom (2016), it's only $4 with an 80 percent off discount. Or pick up Death Stranding Director's Cut for just $16. Steam sales are also a prime chance to add more indies to your library. For multiplayer mayhem, Human Fall Flat and Overcooked 2 are each $6. You can explore the beautiful underwater world of Abzu for just $5. Chicory: A Colorful Tale is half off at $10 and Slime Rancher 2 is down to $20. Those are just a few of the highlights. Now you just have to find the time to play everything you buy.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Can this ugly elf make China cool again?
In China's campaign to win over hearts and minds worldwide, its latest weapon is a fanged, bunny-eared, arguably quite ugly plushie. The grinning fuzzy toy, called Labubu, is made by a Chinese company and has become a global craze. It has in recent months been toted by celebrities including Rihanna and David Beckham; set off brawls among competing shoppers in England; and prompted overnight stakeouts in Los Angeles. It has even shaped the travel itineraries of some devotees, who have planned trips to China around hopes of buying one there. Resale prices for the roughly $US30 ($46) figurine have run into the hundreds of dollars. 'I flew all the way to China just to visit the BIGGEST POP MART STORE IN THE WORLD,' read the caption on a TikTok video by one vlogger from the Philippines, Lianna Patricia Guillermo, referring to the company that makes Labubu. (Guillermo clarified in an interview that she had visited the store during a long layover in Shanghai.) The enthusiasm over Labubu may pass like any other viral trend. But it could also be another sign that China, which has struggled to build cultural cachet overseas amid long-standing concerns about its authoritarian politics, is starting to claim some victories. Loading Chinese state media outlets have sought to frame it that way. 'The furry, nine-toothed elf created by Chinese toymaker Pop Mart has become a benchmark for China's pop culture making inroads overseas,' said an article in People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece. Other Chinese products to find global followings include video games such as Black Myth: Wukong and affordable, well-made electric cars by BYD and other brands. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI model, has been adopted by tech companies overseas, including in the United States and Europe. Foreign travel bloggers have posted videos of themselves gushing about Shanghai's skyline and Chengdu's pandas. More niche offerings, like soapy Chinese period dramas, are finding audiences too. Patti Smith, the punk rock legend, has apparently left admiring comments on the Instagram account of a relatively unknown actor in one that recently debuted on Netflix. Polls also show changes in public opinion. An analysis published in May by Morning Consult showed that for the first time China's global standing surpassed that of the United States, including among American allies. Even in the United States, where views of China remain overwhelmingly negative, the share of Americans with an unfavorable opinion of China fell for the first time in five years in March, according to Pew. Younger Americans in particular are less hostile to China.
Business Times
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Times
How Pop Mart's Labubu became a monster of a business
LABUBU is a little doll in fleecy, bunny-eared onesies whose coffee-bean eyes hover above a serrated row of smiling teeth. Ostensibly an elf, the creature is either cute or creepy, depending on whom you ask. But one thing is clear – it has become a monster of a business. The dolls have been caught on camera with celebrities such as Rihanna and K-pop superstar Lisa, typically dangling from the strap of a designer bag. Their popularity has propelled the stock of its owner, trendy toy retailer Pop Mart International, more than 180 per cent higher this year. Pop Mart's market value of over HK$350 billion (S$57.4 billion) makes it the world's third most valuable intellectual property (IP) company, behind only The Walt Disney Company and Nintendo. The toy reached a cultural milestone on June 10, when a Labubu figure was sold at an auction for more than 1.2 million yuan (S$214,960), including commission, setting a new record for the brand. The auction followed several successful sales of Labubu items, including one that fetched more than HK$200,000 at Sotheby's Hong Kong in late May. Labubu has been crucial to Pop Mart's success, with the toy line it belongs to accounting for nearly a quarter of the company's total revenue last year. The toy has spawned bidding wars, unruly lines outside stores, and a minor controversy at a Chinese bank. Its rise serves as a case study in how to turn a character no one had heard of 10 years ago into the must-have toy of the year. Pop Mart's strategy employed a shrewd mix of cultivating exclusive IP, creating scarcity, leveraging social media, and introducing a bit of gamble into the purchasing of its products. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up The phenomenon shows China's growing potential to produce global money spinners from its cultural creations. Labubu's success echoes that of Black Myth: Wukong, the Chinese-made video game released in 2024 that became one of the fastest-selling titles of all time. 'The rise of China's trendy toy IP reflects the same trend as the global breakout of Chinese entertainment content in recent years. This phenomenon underscores China's growing national strength, particularly the rising competitiveness of its cultural industries,' said Fan Junhao, chief analyst for consumer discretionary at Huatai Securities. The making of a monster Labubu is the creation of Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung, who came up with the creatures in 2015 for his book series 'The Monsters'. Lung gave them a simple backstory. Labubu are forest-dwelling elves whose existence dates back millions of years, at least to the time of the dinosaurs. They number about 100 and are all female. In 2019, the artist signed an agreement with Pop Mart, granting the company exclusive rights to produce and sell toy versions of the storybook sprites, launching Labubu under its 'The Monsters' series. Much like there is more than one Labubu in Lung's story, there are a variety of Labubu toys on Pop Mart's shelves. The main difference is in the colouring, with different Labubu sporting a different colour of bunny-eared onesie, though the eyes, nose and teeth can also be colored differently. A Labubu figure and Labubu stickers are seen at a Pop Mart shop in Beijing. A Beijing auction house sold a Labubu figure for over US$150,000, as global demand for the dolls reaches fever pitch. PHOTO: AFP Some Labubu are rarer than others. One particularly sought-after version sports a charcoal grey onesie and a distinctive set of rainbow-colored teeth. Pop Mart sells the Labubu in 'blind boxes', so that buyers don't know which one they are getting until they tear open the packaging. This drives sales as it leaves particularly fanatical Labubu fans with no other choice than to keep buying the toy until they get the Labubu in their preferred colour of onesie. The toy was not an overnight hit. The dolls were originally made of hard vinyl, but sales started to pick up once Pop Mart started selling Labubu plush toys on key rings and as larger dolls in 2023. The watershed moment came the following year, when Lisa, the Thai member of the K-pop girl group Blackpink, repeatedly showcased her collection of Labubu plushies on social media. A buying frenzy began across South-east Asia. The impact was immediate. Pop Mart's revenue from 'The Monsters' series grew more than eightfold in 2024, making up 23.3 per cent of its total revenue, according to the company's financial report. Its plushie sales, spearheaded by Labubu, skyrocketed 1,289 per cent. South-east Asia emerged as Pop Mart's largest international market, contributing nearly half of total overseas revenue, which surged 375 per cent to nearly 5.1 billion yuan. Labubu's popularity is especially evident in Thailand. Outside Pop Mart's three-storey flagship store in Bangkok's bustling Siam Square, security guards watched over lines of customers on June 6. 'Around 500 tourists come each day just for Labubu, mostly Thais and Chinese', said a store employee. The employee said that Labubu plushies were sold out at every brick-and-mortar Pop Mart in the country. The unmet demand has created a grey market of unauthorized Labubu dealers. Just 50 meters from the official store, a tiny, unnamed shop stocks nearly every kind of Labubu – some priced at more than twice the official retail price. At the shop, one Chinese customer dropped more than 9,000 baht (S$353) on Labubu in a matter of minutes. Another customer, a tourist in his 50s, said he had no choice but to pay scalper prices to secure a Labubu for his daughter. 'The official store had nothing left,' he said. The Labubu fever has spread beyond South-east Asia. After pop superstar Rihanna was spotted with a pink Labubu hanging from her designer bag at an Los Angeles airport in February, the US and the UK got caught up in the frenzy. The release of the third-generation Labubu plushies two months later led to viral reports of overnight lines and fights breaking out among desperate customers outside Pop Mart stores. The toy's popularity has even impacted the Chinese banking industry, of all places. Caixin learned that several branches of Ping An Bank had to suspend a promotion that offered free Labubu toys as rewards for opening new accounts following discussions that the giveaway might be a violation of banking rules. Financial institutions in southeastern China have recently received regulatory reminders about the ban on attracting deposits with gifts, sources told Caixin. However, it remains unclear whether these warnings were related to the Labubu promotions. The game plan Pop Mart follows a three-part business model employed by many Chinese toy retailers, which blends premium IP with gamified retail and social media dissemination, the analyst Fan said. Under the model, companies either create original IP or acquire and manage existing properties, ensuring their products meet premium quality standards, Fan said. With strong IP as the cornerstone, they then turn buying their products into a kind of game. The randomness of the blind boxes sparks online discussions and a desire among customers to keep buying so they can collect an entire series of products. This also generates a secondary market driven by scarcity and rising value of the products among collectors. The third component is social media amplification, Fan said, explaining that companies leverage celebrity endorsements and encourage user-generated content such as memes to create a trend with mass-market appeal. An auctioneer congratulates the buyer who won the bid for a Labubu figurine, during an auction by Yongle International Auction in Beijing on June 10. PHOTO: REUTERS 'Lisa played a significant role in propelling Labubu into the mainstream,' said a designer specialising in trendy toy IP. 'Celebrity endorsements remain the most effective breakthrough strategy – a tried-and-tested approach drawn from the luxury sector.' In addition, unlike hard vinyl figures, the plush versions of Labubu possess a more inherent 'social' quality, and added straps make it easier for celebrities to wear and display them, the designer said, noting that, like Pop Mart, many toy companies are now developing their own 'fuzzy' collectible lines to leverage celebrity influence and drive sales. While Chinese brands have only recently perfected this approach, it has a long track record of success for global toy brands such as Kaws, Bearbrick and Jellycat, said Fan, who emphasised the model allows customers to be more than mere buyers, but content creators as well. Toy companies ought to evolve beyond being simple manufacturers or distributors, Fan said. Rather, they should become IP operating platforms, or even content creation companies. Chen Chufang, a former IP specialist for a toy company, believes that for an IP to become popular globally, it needs more than celebrity endorsements. It's just as important to have high-profile retail stores abroad. 'Opening a standout collectible toy store overseas makes a far bigger impact than doing so in China,' he said. By the end of 2024, Pop Mart had opened 130 stores overseas, locating most of them in prominent spots like Oxford Street in London and the Louvre in Paris, making it the first Chinese toy brand to enter the iconic museum. 'Previously, overseas IP derivatives were expensive. But now, Chinese companies are reaching overseas customers with relatively reasonable pricing and the novelty of blind boxes, while putting stores in core local commercial districts. They are becoming disruptors,' Chen said. CAIXIN GLOBAL
Metro
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
NetEase game Blood Message may have the best video game graphics ever
After Black Myth: Wukong put China on the map in terms of single-player action games, new title Blood Message seems to be going a step further. Up until the last couple of years, the Chinese video games industry has had virtually no visible influence on the Western market. Giant publishers like Tencent and NetEase do own numerous Western developers, and shares in publishers, but no one would play a game like Marvel Rivals and assume it came from China. But all that has changed recently, with last year's Black Myth: Wukong (and Stellar Blade from Korean studio Shift Up) cementing a new era of Asian video games that are not from Japan. You would think that the lack of experience, with console style single-player games, would require a long period of learning and experimentation, but in terms of graphics that has not been the case at all. To the point where new game Blood Message is already looking better than almost any other game in development. All we've got to go on is the trailer below, but the game is published by NetEase and developed by 24 Entertainment in Hangzhou, China. It's described as a 'cinematic, single-player, linear story-driven action adventure' for consoles and PC. A lot of the first wave of Chinese single-player games have been heavily influenced by FromSoftware and the Soulslikes genre, including the upcoming Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, but Blood Message seems to be closer to Sony titles such as God Of War and The Last Of Us. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. There's little further information about the gameplay, except that it blends 'visceral, realistic combat' with 'stealth and survival mechanics.' More Trending The story is based around the final years of the Tang Dynasty, in the 9th century, and casts you as an unnamed messenger trying to travel East, with his young son, during Dunhuang's Uprising. We're unclear how much of it is based on historical reality but there doesn't seem to be any magic or fantasy elements. Unreal Engine 5 is being used for the visuals and if the trailer is an accurate representation of what the game is going to look like in action, then we should all be in for a treat. There's no word on a release date or year, which is usually an indication that the game is a long way off, but hopefully we'll find out about that soon. 'As our first completely single-player focused experience from NetEase Games, after two decades of deep dedication to the gaming industry, we are prepared to deliver a truly epic and cinematic experience for players around the world,' said Zhipeng Hu, Lead Producer and NetEase Executive Vice President. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: You can buy one of the best games ever for the price of an ice lolly MORE: The six strangest games Hideo Kojima made before Death Stranding 2 MORE: Survival Kids review – lost in blue on the Nintendo Switch 2
