The 'Black Myth: Wukong' report exposes the studio's sexist culture and toxic workplace environment, revealing deeply ingrained misogyny from leadership to daily operations.
As a long-time observer and participant in the global gaming industry, the recent, detailed report confirming the deeply ingrained sexist culture at Game Science, the studio behind Black Myth: Wukong, feels less like a shocking revelation and more like the final, damning diagnosis for a long-festering disease. For years, whispers and anecdotes about the studio's environment have circulated, but seeing the crude, highly sexualized, and demeaning comments from developers laid bare is to witness a professional space that operates like a high-tech boys' club, where respect for women is as absent as a peaceful moment in one of their boss fights. It's a culture that treats female gamers and colleagues not as equals, but as unwelcome intruders in a sacred, masculine domain, their presence seen as a dilution of some perceived artistic purity.
The report meticulously documents a pattern of behavior that is both juvenile and profoundly damaging. Developers have been found making comments that reduce women to sexual objects, with one technical artist, Daiwei, infamously commenting on a half-snake character from a recent trailer: "The snake spirit is different from what I imagined. But if I cover the bottom half with my hand, it's still possible to jerk off." This is not an isolated slip; it is emblematic of a workplace where such language is normalized. It’s as if their professional communication is filtered through the lens of a toxic online forum, where every creative decision is subjected to a crude, reductive sexual gaze. The studio's own recruitment materials allegedly bragged about "friends with benefits" perks, while another poster bluntly stated, "Fatties should f*ck off," painting a picture of an environment that is openly hostile and exclusionary.
The philosophical underpinning of this exclusion seems to stem from the very top. The report traces the infamous sentiment—that the developers don't want women playing their games—back to a 2013 Weibo post by the game's lead artist, Yang Qi. In it, he posits a fundamental biological divide: "The G-spots of male and female games are fundamentally different... This is not determined by the gaming environment, but by biological conditions." He then launches into a tirade against what he dismisses as games for women, shouting into the void: "Fck sissies, fck tragic love stories, fuck moon-lit peach blossoms and flute-playing scholars! [...] Some things are just for men, their depression, their anger, their pain..." This worldview, treating game development as a form of testosterone-fueled catharsis reserved for a specific gender, is like building a magnificent library and then declaring half the population illiterate by birthright. It’s a self-serving mythology that justifies exclusion under the guise of artistic vision.
Co-founder Feng Ji is also cited for frequently leaning on sexual innuendo, once writing: "I want to expand my circle and hire more people, get licked until I can't get an erection. I want to be honest and make a [game] trailer, and be praised as the savior of the industry." This bizarre juxtaposition of vulgarity and professional aspiration reveals a culture where success is imagined not just through technical prowess, but through a performative, dominant masculinity. The silence from Game Science in the face of these allegations is, in itself, a roaring statement. It suggests a studio confident that its commercial success, buoyed by the breathtaking visuals of Black Myth: Wukong, will insulate it from any meaningful accountability. Their silence is as calculated and cold as the polygonal count on their monster models.
For women in the Chinese gaming community, this report simply confirms their lived reality. One woman, using the pseudonym Jen, articulated the profound despair this culture breeds: "These male developers have never paid the price for their misogynistic remarks... In their eyes, women don't deserve respect. Even just listening to them is considered pandering, a marketing tactic, and catering to Western political correctness. I can't describe how despairing this feels." This sentiment highlights a vicious cycle: the community that consumes these games often reinforces the developers' attitudes, dismissing calls for basic respect as foreign interference. The alienation is total. To be a woman engaging with this space is to navigate a minefield where your very presence is seen as a political act, your criticism dismissed as a failure to appreciate "art for men." It turns fandom into a form of psychological trench warfare.
| Aspect of Culture | Example from Game Science | Impact on Community |
|---|---|---|
| Recruitment & HR | "Friends with benefits" perks; "Fatties should f*ck off" posters. | Creates an openly hostile and exclusionary entry point for diverse talent. |
| Social Media Conduct | Daiwei's sexualized comment on character design; Feng Ji's crude innuendo. | Normalizes misogyny and objectification, alienating a huge segment of the player base. |
| Foundational Philosophy | Yang Qi's 2013 post on biological determinism in gaming. | Provides intellectual cover for discrimination, framing sexism as artistic integrity. |
| Corporate Response | Complete silence and lack of accountability post-report. | Signals that success excuses toxicity, deepening community disillusionment. |
Looking at the broader landscape in 2025, the situation at Game Science feels like a stubborn relic. While many studios globally grapple meaningfully with inclusion—refining hiring practices, implementing sensitivity training, and crafting narratives that resonate across genders—Game Science appears entrenched in a regressive mindset. Their vision of game development is like a meticulously crafted, gilded cage: beautiful to look at from the outside, but built on principles that trap its creators in a cycle of immature and harmful behavior. The tragedy is that Black Myth: Wukong itself, a game drawing from a rich cultural mythos with universal themes of struggle and enlightenment, is being shackled by the petty, small-minded prejudices of some of its creators. They are building a majestic digital cathedral, but insisting on keeping the doors locked to half the world, convinced that the shadows they cast inside are more authentic than the sunlight outside. The gaming industry's future is one of connection and shared experience, but pockets like this threaten to keep it anchored in a divisive and ultimately impoverished past.