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China tidak mampu selamatkan Malaysia yang korup dan pro-Bumiputera – Penyelidik UM
CHINESE state media threw its back behind China’s most successful single-player video game to date, saying its adaptation of the Ming dynasty epic Journey To The West would force Western players to learn more about the country’s culture.
Black Myth: Wukong, based on a mythical monkey king from a Chinese literary classic who can shape-shift into humans, animals and inanimate objects, was being played last Wednesday by 2.2 million concurrent players on Steam, a major online gaming platform, a day after its release.
“Chinese players in the past have gone through this process of cross-cultural understanding, now it is the turn of overseas players to learn ... and understand Chinese traditional culture,” China Central Television wrote in a blog.
Drawing heavily on the story of the beloved magical monkey, Sun Wukong, who acquires supernatural powers by practising Taoism, Black Myth: Wukong can only be enjoyed if players are familiar with the plot of the 16th century classic, the national broadcaster said.
The Pc/console-based game was launched last week by Game Science, a Tencent-backed startup, to much fanfare on Chinese social media. Hashtags on the video game accumulated 1.7 billion views on China’s X-like microblog Weibo.
“This release marks a bold foray by Chinese game developers into a market long dominated by Western triple-a titles,” the official Xinhua news agency wrote in an editorial last week.
“With this breakthrough, the default language of a triple-a game is no longer English, but Chinese,” it added.
Black Myth: Wukong would “attract more global players to pay attention to domestic games”, said analysts at Shanghai-based Topsperity Securities, adding that companies across a wide range of sectors could expect to profit off intellectual property tie-ins.
Ride-hailing firm Didi, Lenovo Group and Luckin Coffee are incorporating elements inspired by Black Myth: Wukong into their promotional campaigns.
Black Myth: Wukong was widely lauded as China’s first AAA game – high development costs, long production cycles and immense investment, with industry analysts viewing its sudden fame and popularity as marking an inflection point for China’s PC/ console gaming sector.
Pre-sales, which began in June, had reached Cny400mil (Us$56mil/rm245mil) as of last Tuesday when the game was launched, according to Citi.
Feng Ji, founder of Game Science, told Xinhua in an interview that the global attention has surpassed his initial expectations and that his team would develop more of such games.
“We see signs that the government is recognising the industry’s potential value for exports and culture, notably the interview of Game Science’s founder by state media Xinhua agency ahead of its game launch,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a note.
Goldman added that it expected more Chinese AAA games to enter the global market in the future.
Be that as it may, gaming stocks were unchanged last Wednesday, with concept stocks linked to the game’s development down after having risen considerably over the past month.
Unlike other Chinese games that are played on mobile devices and involve endless in-game micro-transactions, “Black Myth: Wukong” is a one-time purchase with a price tag of CNY268 (RM165) for the standard version and CNY328 (RM200) for the premium.
“It is unclear whether Black Myth: Wukong’s business model can bring more profits ... the important thing ... is that China is finally getting it’s own AAA game that can excite the world,” stateowned tabloid Global Times cited an industry insider as saying.
“Global players will be able to get a deeper understanding of traditional Chinese culture while having fun,” Global Times declared. – Reuters
Illustration: Chen Xia/GT
Black Myth: Wukong, a
video game that embodies the dream of Chinese gamers to have a game
deeply rooted in Chinese culture and on par with the best games
globally, has been a major hit since its debut. However, just like every
success China has had, Western media's criticism is never far behind.
Even if Western media can't deny the game's global success, there is often a classic "but" in their reports. "'Black Myth: Wukong'
Is a Hit. But Why Is the Game So Controversial?" US magazine Rolling
Stone asked recently, stressing that the game lacks "inclusivity and
diversity." A BBC headline was entirely negative: "Blockbuster Chinese
video game tried to police players - and divided the internet."
The
criticism about inclusivity and diversity appears to be a rushed
judgment from journalists or commentator who spent only a few hours with
the game. If they played longer, they would see that female characters
do appear over time. The point it, true players don't really care about
it. As some overseas netizens put it - it's a game, not a movie, it
doesn't need to cater to Western political correctness by including
diverse female characters or transgender individuals.
The recent attacks from some Western media outlets come after Black Myth: Wukong
has challenged the gaming ecosystem in the Western world, Shen Yi, a
professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times. In this system,
consulting firms like Sweet Baby Inc offer costly diversity, equity, and
inclusion advice for video games. Black Myth: Wukong, however,
not only reportedly showed no interest to obediently conform to
distorted rules but also achieved unprecedented success. This has
sparked both envy and fear among those who control the ecosystem and led
to the recent attacks focused on gender, diversity, and inclusivity.
Moreover, the radar of some anti-China forces is triggered when Black Myth: Wukong
is increasingly considered as a symbol of China's soft power, prompting
foreign players to rediscover China's capabilities while promoting the
global spread of traditional Chinese culture. The BBC - which cannot
accept the fact that China's image is improving through the game -
wrongly accuses China of censorship to dampen international perceptions
of China.
Their strategy of attacking the game is just the same
old Western tactic - politicizing every Chinese achievement, even in the
realm of gaming. What's next? Will they portray the Chinese gaming
industry as a "threat" in the future?
What they fail to grasp is
that whether players choose to pay for a game is never about ideology,
or political correctness over diversity. The game's quality is what
truly matters. Feng Ji, founder of the game's developer Game Science,
recently said that cultural export was not the initial goal of the game.
Yet he believes that if the quality is high enough, it will naturally
radiate to the overseas market.
He made it. Black Myth: Wukong's high quality has fueled its popularity. Many international players enjoy the game, which has inspired their curiosity about Journey to the West and Chinese culture.
If Black Myth: Wukong hadn't been successful, if it hadn't topped sales charts worldwide, and
if it had been just an average game, would Western media even care
about it? They would probably just claim that China has no AAA game. The
fact that they attack the game proves its success and highlights the
persistent cultural hegemony and arrogance of some in the West. While
Chinese people have long been opening up to the world, some Westerners
are still unwilling to recognize China as it is.
I WAS a rookie reporter when I was called to the now-condemned Pekeliling Flats in Kuala Lumpur – on the eve of Deepavali.
A man had been waiting for the lift. It was pitch dark as the lights were all out and the maintenance was very poor. He pressed the lift button and the door opened.
Assuming the lift was there, he stepped in. There was nothing but thin air. The man fell more than a dozen floors, and no one knew about it until a guard on the ground floor heard some moaning.
He checked. The man had survived the fall but he broke both his legs and many bones. If he had died, they may not have found him for days!
Immediately after the tragic accident, there was an outcry over how flats in our country needed proper upkeep and maintenance. And the leaders stepped in, promising changes. City Hall also promised improvements.
But then, there is this Malay saying: “Hangat-hangat tahi ayam.” Things soon cooled down and the matter was forgotten.
The Pekeliling Flats are gone now, and the area is about to be developed into a prime commercial centre. But one thing has not changed – our maintenance culture, or the lack of it.
On Monday, two boys aged 10 and 11 went missing. One of the boys, according to his aunt, had left his home at the Desa Petaling Flats at about 2pm to buy buns and meet his friend living at the nearby Pangsaria Apartments.
When they had not returned home at 10pm – eight hours later – the families got worried. Frantically, they put out alerts on social media. They also lodged police reports and a search was mounted. They searched, and so did the cops.
It was at 1am, some three hours later, that a security guard checked the CCTV and realised the boys had actually been trapped in a lift. They had been there for about nine hours and no one had known about it.
The boys said they had tried to call out, but no one replied or came to their rescue. It’s a good thing the boys were just exhausted, hungry and sleepy when they were finally rescued, with nothing more serious happening to them.
But what if something serious had happened? Who would take the blame?
What boggles the mind is: Why did no one know that the lift had been stuck for nine hours?
Did no one else need to use it for the full nine hours? Or have the residents got so used to the lift breaking down? This happens often in many flats, where “out of order” notices are hung outside lift doors.
After more than 40 years since that Pekeliling Flats incident, our maintenance culture still sucks.
In June this year, a video of a man carrying his wheelchairusing grandmother up the stairs at the flats where they live went viral. All four lifts in the flats in Setapak were out of order.
The man said he had complained to the apartment management and technician, but nothing was done. That is how bad things are.
Of course, in many cases, the residents themselves are to be blamed. They just do not care about the upkeep of the facilities they use.
The two boys, for instance, were no angels. But they exposed both problems – vandalism and apathy.
First, the two – for some unknown reason – stuck a slipper in the lift door, causing it to go into auto-lock mode. And then, while they cried for help, no one cared about a lift that was stuck for nine hours.
Like the boys, many residents in flats around the country find joy in vandalism, damaging the buttons, doors and electrical equipment.
There are 159 People’s Housing Programme (PPR) projects with 99,000 housing units nationwide. If each unit housed between four and five people, we are talking about close to 400,000 people who are using lifts every day.
In Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, there are said to be about 150,000 PPR residents. There are already many other social problems in these flats, including a lack of cleanliness, gangsterism and drug use.
They don’t need broken down lifts as well.
Residents in Kepong, for one, have long been complaining about faulty lifts at their PPR flats. They even resorted to writing to the King.
“We commonly hear about PPR lifts breaking down all around the country and in many cases, it is the lack of spare parts that causes downtime,” said an annoyed Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng.
“Why has the availability of spare parts to repair lifts not been made a priority?” he asked. Why indeed?
All local councils need to have spare parts parked somewhere central, along with technicians who can reach the flats quickly when called.
Then, there is cronyism in the choice of contractors, which leads to incompetent people getting the maintenance jobs.
In the case of the flats in Kepong, a contractor had failed to replace six of the lifts, say residents. Yet, the same contractor was re-appointed to replace 32 lifts across 12 blocks of flats there. Who made that call?
The Malaysian Elevators and Escalators Association (yes, there is such an organisation) agrees that the poor choice of contractors by management committees was the main reason for the problem. “They just want to save costs and do the minimum maintenance,” it says.
And why do they do that? Because there are residents who do not pay management fees, forcing the committees to cut corners. It is a vicious circle.
It is important that everyone plays their part. The government has set aside Rm100mil for flats maintenance, but that is simply too little. Preventive maintenance must come from the residents themselves.
A commendation ceremony today for all the 🇨🇳Chinese athletes who competed in Paris Olympics!Pan Zhanle🏊♂️, Zheng Qinwen🎾, Quan Hongchan🥇, Ma Long🏓, Zhang Yufei🏊♀️, Li Wenwen🏋️♀️ ... they all shook hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping!So proud of all these ambitious &… pic.twitter.com/e9ns0NDqGg— Li Jingjing 李菁菁 (@Jingjing_Li) August 20, 2024
President Xi Jinping meets with China's Olympic delegation for Paris 2024 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on August 20, 2024. Team China clinched 40 gold, 27 silver and 24 bronze medals in Paris. Photo: Xinhua
