Inspiration || What implications do the globally popular Black Myth Wukong bring to the fashion industry?

Nowadays, luxury brands rarely spend four years to polish a product.

Since first day of it's official release, the domestic 3A game "Black Myth: Wukong" has created an unprecedented cultural phenomenon around the world. This domestic game attracted widespread attention in the game market when it was released four years ago, and its official launch two days ago has completely spread its influence, creating a grand event of national carnival.

In just one hour, the number of online players exceeded one million. The global sales of Black Myth on first day : Wukong exceeded 4.5 million, with total sales exceeding 1.5 billion yuan.

Consumers' willingness to pay for experiential consumption has amazed the market.

On video platforms such as BiliBili and Douyin ( Chinese version of Tiktok), terms related to "Black Myth: Wukong" occupied the top three hot searches throughout the day. On mainstream overseas platforms such as Youtube and Twitch, the game also became a popular tag, attracting a large number of overseas players to continuously broadcast their gameplay live.

Faced with the amazing commercial value, concept stocks related to games also ushered in a strong rise. Among them, Xinxunda’s share price once reached the daily limit, with an increase of 20%. Huayi Brothers, which is closely related to games, saw its share price soar by more than 50% in just six trading days, attracting widespread attention from the capital market and the industry.

The technology and fast-moving consumer goods markets also have a keen sense of smell.

More than 10 brands including NVIDIA, Hisense, Lenovo, Didi Qingju, Luckin Coffee, and JD.com have previously announced their collaboration with Black Myth: Wukong. As soon as the joint event between Luckin Coffee and the game started, the related products were quickly sold out after they were put on the shelves.

However, it seems that fashion brands have obviously not predicted the widespread impact that "Black Myth: Wukong" will have on the domestic cultural market.

The gaming industry and the fashion industry are not without overlap. In fact, luxury brands have continued to tap into the gold mine of virtual fashion in recent years.

In 2019, LV announced a cross-border collaboration with Riot Games, and was the world's first luxury brand to announce a collaboration with a game company.

The brand created a trophy travel case for the competitive game League of Legends developed by the latter. It was designed by Nicolas Ghesquière, the women's wear creative director who is passionate about the theme of time travel. He designed a ultimate skin for the game character Qiyana, incorporating many LV items, which once sparked heated discussions in the fashion industry.

Continuing its focus on the virtual world, LV also launched its first digital hard case, VIA Treasure Trunk, last year. Each piece is priced at 39,000 euros. Consumers can use cryptocurrency as a payment method and the product is limited to a few hundred pieces.

As the world's largest luxury brand, LV represents the direction of luxury brands' future exploration. Pushing the brand into the virtual world is even more urgent in the era of artificial intelligence after the birth of ChatGPT.

According to Fashion Business Express, 20% of fashion and luxury brands developed NFT products in 2021 alone, including Gucci, Burberry, Givenchy, DKNY, RIMOWA and Rebecca Minkoff.

In 2022, fashion brands' enthusiasm for NFTs reached its peak, with dozens of large luxury brands and start-up brands entering the virtual world. Some luxury brands that were the first to taste the sweetness, such as Prada and Gucci, bought in heavily, betting on this trend.

Among them, British luxury brand Burberry collaborated with the open exploration game "Minecraft" in the same year, incorporating the brand's classic trench coat, knight logo and plaid elements into the game scenes, and launched a capsule series including ready-to-wear and accessories, as well as 15 game skins and four maps.

However, last year, the fashion industry seemed to suddenly lose interest after a round of gaming and metaverse fever. Brands that had previously intended to tap into this trend also showed no determination to continue investing, which seemed to reveal the speculative nature of the fashion industry rather than real curiosity about the virtual world.

But it turns out that as the boundaries between physical and virtual life are broken, the global fashion industry, which has reached a bottleneck, must seek opportunities in the virtual world.

Since the beginning of this year, some luxury brands have decided to continue betting on virtuality, including Balenciaga's announcement in July that it would cooperate with the racing mobile game "Need for Speed: Assemble" to launch physical joint fashion series and in-game implantation resources and other multi-field cooperation.

In March, the accessible luxury brand Michael Kors announced a collaboration with the fashion game FashionVerse, which allows players to use the brand’s virtual products to design looks for their characters. Since its launch, the game has been downloaded more than 1 million times across the entire network.

In the gaming world, many existing boundaries and common sense in the real world are broken, and consumers temporarily forget their existing identities, making it easier for them to accept new things. Through e-sports as an outlet, luxury brands can truly reach young consumer groups who share a certain interest label.

In the framework of the real world, luxury brands expand into different regional markets, and with the globalization of fashion brands, the next step of expansion will be from the real world to the virtual world.

The premise of this move is that in two parallel worlds, the psychological nature of people seeking recognition through fashion and luxury goods has not changed, which brings opportunities to the fashion industry.

In addition to reaffirming the importance of virtual fashion, "Black Myth: Wukong" also brings inspiration to the development of Chinese fashion.

The traditional Chinese cultural themes presented in the game have aroused widespread discussion in the market, conforming to the overall trend of China's cultural confidence in recent years.

On the one hand, "Black Myth: Wukong" broke the long-term monopoly of Europe and the United States in the 3A game field. In order to have a deeper understanding of the grand background of the game, some foreign players even began to study "Journey to the West".

In the overseas version of the game, all character names and props are in Chinese pinyin instead of English. For example, Wukong is directly translated as Wukong, and the golden hoop stick is directly translated as Jing Gu Bang.

On the other hand, in terms of visual aesthetics, this game also presents a high level of Chinese aesthetics, and is full of craftsmanship details in the creation of character costumes and props.

The design team no longer caters to Western aesthetics in the design of the protagonist's appearance, but instead respects the description of the image of Sun Wukong in the original novel, wearing a phoenix-wing purple gold crown and a chain mail golden armor.

According to the analysis of video blogger "Hejita's Interesting Alley", the prototype of the golden armor in the game is the Ming Guang Armor of the Tang Dynasty. The chest armor has been polished, and the back and shoulder armor of the protagonist are designed with Shanwen armor craftsmanship, which is very similar to the shape of the Weituo statue in Shuanglin Temple in Shanxi.

In terms of font design, every time the player passes a chapter, a seal with the word "Pass" designed in small seal font will appear on the screen. The seal was stamped by ancient creators after the calligraphy and painting copybook was completed. The game uses this font form to tell the player that the journey of the chapter has reached the end.

The game production team also drew inspiration from traditional Chinese ancient architecture. According to the filming location catalog released by the game production team, Black Myth: Wukong restored ancient buildings and sculptures such as the Jade Emperor Temple and Iron Buddha Temple in Jincheng, Shanxi, Chongfu Temple in Shuozhou, Zhenguo Temple in Pingyao, and Xiaoxitian Temple in Linfen through real-scene scanning technology.

The character design of the game "Black Myth: Wukong" and the complex traditional craftsmanship it displays are likely to give the fashion industry room for imagination.

It is worth noting that in the past two years, the Chinese consumer market has also shown a strong interest in traditional complex craftsmanship and cultural elements, reflecting the confidence and evolution of Chinese consumers' aesthetic tastes.

Data shows that in 2023, the number of notes about the new Chinese style on Xiaohongshu increased by more than 390%, and the total amount of interactions increased by nearly 190%. Currently, there are more than 2.6 million related notes. On another social media platform, Douyin, the number of views under the topic of "New Chinese Style" has even exceeded 10 billion.

The recent rise of the Chinese old money style also indirectly proves the popularity of the new Chinese style. Based on the new Chinese style, the Chinese old money style evolved from the old money style that is popular all over the world. It usually uses traditional luxury fabrics such as Song brocade and Suzhou embroidery and high-end handicrafts, and the overall style is more luxurious.

We have to admit that the birthplace of fashion art is still in Europe today. After years of debate, the question of whether China can produce a truly local luxury brand is now beginning to see a preliminary answer. The popularity of a new generation of high-end gold jewelry brands reflects the Chinese consumers' special understanding of luxury goods and fashion aesthetics.

Laopu Gold, which has been sought after by the capital market this year, is becoming a beneficiary of China's cultural and aesthetic confidence. Since its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on June 28, the group's current market value has approached HK$15 billion.

Laopu Gold is the first brand in China to promote the concept of ancient gold, based on traditional Chinese culture. It claims to use the ancient Chinese court gold making method, which has intangible cultural value. The brand's products incorporate traditional Chinese elements and are all-encompassing. Its product portfolio includes ancient patterns, mythological stories, court styles, etc.

Although the ancient gold series launched by other domestic gold brands have also received positive market response, Laopu Gold's purer Chinese style has attracted the attention of a new generation of young luxury consumers with cultural confidence. These consumers are more receptive to new things, have less prejudice against local brands, and focus on expressing their individuality.

This consumer portrait clearly overlaps with the target audience of the game "Black Myth: Wukong". With its sophisticated production and cultural themes, the game will attract more new players who have not previously paid attention to games, just as future Chinese luxury brands should target those who were not interested in luxury goods before.

Breaking the inertia of thinking and creating new definitions is the direction of any consumer and culture-related industry.