《黑神話：悟空》的成功不僅證明了中國買斷制3A單機遊戲的市場潛力，也引發了中國遊戲行業的新一輪投資熱潮。
不過，業內人士Daniel Olimac指出，這股熱潮背後還有一個值得關注、卻較少被討論的現象：過去兩三年間，一批中國3A項目被取消，或中途轉向其他開發方向。
他認為，問題之一在於投資者低估了遊戲開發的時間成本。
《黑神話：悟空》取得成功後，不少投資人和風投機構開始將資金投入中國高品質單機遊戲，但其中一些人並不了解大型遊戲的開發周期。
當他們發現項目需要等待三至五年才能完成，短期內難以獲得回報時，便選擇撤資，或要求開發團隊調整項目方向。
這聽起來或許令人難以理解，但類似情況並不罕見。
作者將其與加密貨幣、元宇宙、NFT、Web3以及早期VR熱潮相提並論：當某個領域突然受到追捧時，一些投資者可能在缺乏充分行業認知的情況下匆忙入場，卻無法接受真正的研發周期與商業風險。
與此同時，作者強調，中國3A遊戲的發展並非只靠《黑神話：悟空》一款作品推動。《原神》等中國免費遊戲同樣發揮了重要作用。
成功的中國手遊和免費遊戲積累的資金、經驗與市場信心，為後來開發大型買斷制遊戲創造了條件。
此外，不少中國3A團隊的成員本身就擁有手遊開發背景，因此，中國遊戲產業中的免費遊戲、手遊與買斷制單機遊戲並非彼此割裂，而是存在緊密聯繫。
這場中國3A熱潮的真正考驗，不只是能否吸引投資，更在於投資者是否理解遊戲開發的長期性。 《黑神話：悟空》證明了中國3A的潛力，但將這種潛力轉化為持續產出，還需要資金、研發周期與商業預期之間形成更穩定的平衡。
Indeed there's no doubt Black Myth Wukong triggered a wave of interest and investment towards AAA premium single player games in China. That's beyond doubt.* The more interesting/underreported story perhaps is the amount of games from that wave that have since been cancelled, or pivoted development. Personally I know of a few cases, but I'm confident there's been many more. Among the many reasons that led to multiple AAA premium projects being cancelled in China in these last 2/3 years, one that I think is particularly revealing is "lead time". Basically: a lot of investors/VCs/whatever who decided to pour money into gaming (in China) once BMWukong turned out to be a huge hit, had no understanding of development cycles in gaming and how long it takes to produce such games. Meaning, once a lot of these investors realized they wouldn't get a quick return, they disinvested and/or forced pivots. 3 to 5 years of development/wait was far too long for many of these people/groups. I know this might sound like a ridiculous thing, and that people who invest for a living would at least take some time to study the field they're investing in before they do, right? Yeah, sure. But go tell that to all those who jumped into the crypto/metaverse/NFTs/Web3 hype, or those who blindly jumped into VR in 2016, or whatever other million examples... You would think..... Anyway, besides the success of Black Myth Wukong as a benchmark that "opened the gates", we can't underestimate the importance that successful AAA F2P Chinese titles had as well. Such as Genshin Impact in particular. Arguably, a lot of what we've seen in Chinese game development in recent years wouldn't be possible without the confidence/gains generated by Genshin and a few other successful games in the F2P domain. Also important to keep in mind that a lot of the Chinese devs that have been developing major premium games have a professional background on mobile game development. It's all very.... intertwined. *as me and many others have been reporting since Wukong first released: https://x.com/DanielOlimac/status/1881774128275100038 https://twitter.com/DanielOlimac/status/2112224448615215470
