Wukong Director Calls Out The Game Awards After Loss

Summary

Black Myth: Wukong ended The Game Awards with two wins after being nominated for five awards, including Game of the Year.
In a social media post, Game Science CEO Feng Ji appears to criticize the event, particularly the criteria over what ultimately does win the award.
The post is a mix of frustration and confusion, along with hope over what the studio can do to impact gamers around the world.

With the 2024 edition of The Game Awards officially in the rearview, as expected, there has been some fallout. In the time since Thursday’s show, we’ve learned more details about Mafia: The Old Country, as well as The Witcher 4.

That said, not every bit of fallout has been peachy. In particular, the CEO of Game Science, the studio behind Game of the Year nominee, Black Myth: Wukong, took to Chinese social media site, Weibo, to air out his frustrations over his title seemingly not winning the year-end award.

Barbie driving while Ken screams in the backseat with a TGA award in hand.

Black Myth: Wukong’s GOTY Nomination Proves It’s Gaming’s Barbie

Was it nominated because it was truly excellent, or because it made a lot of money?

“I Came Here For Nothing”

To start, it’s important to note that Wukong did not leave the show empty-handed. Entering the event, the game had been nominated for five awards (Best Art Direction, Players’ Choice, Best Action Game, Best Game Direction and Game of the Year). It left the event having won two (Players’ Choice, Best Action).

Additionally, entering the event, Wukong stood as the lowest-rated game on Metacritic to ever be nominated for GOTY.

With that said, via the post, which can be found here, and has been roughly translated via Google and edited for clarity, Feng Ji, who also served as producer on the game, described a misunderstanding of the criteria over what can win GOTY. In particular, he appears to have written:

“I came here for nothing.”

In a seven-pronged post, the CEO discussed the immense amount of work that was put into the game, as well as some of the rationale behind why they embarked on this journey. “There are still many people in this world who (don’t have a) chance to play so-called (AAA) games,” they wrote in part. “Many people who have never used consoles and computers, many people who feel confused, (pained), and even desperate about the current (world), and many people who are suffering from injustice.

“I think, the more this is the case, the more we need to create better games and create content that allows more people to feel truth, goodness, and beauty.”

Additionally, he made reference to having a speech prepared as far back as two years ago for the event they did win. That part is a bit less clear due to translation.

Going through the post in its entirety, it seems like a better explanation of how games win would’ve gone a longer way. It’s not hard to imagine feeling lucky if you’ve already bagged two awards on the night. More so, a chance to speak on stage would likely be appreciated, especially considering the travel arrangements made to be in attendance. A full one-on-one interview with proper translating would go a long way, though even without it, the frustration, confusion and hope are palpable.