The big news story about Black Myth: Wukong ‘s sexual harassment scandal in my opinion is rooted in failed localization management due to a management echo chamber. That caused problems when leaving China’s borders. The echo chamber phenomenon is already apparent in their subtitle translation; previously I covered why Wukong’s dialog is so confusing in critics’ view. In short, in order to avoid disagreement from Western collaborators, they appear to have hired docile drug addicts. They produced those confusing subtitles.* That echo chamber phenomenon also affected their international business management, resulting in a financially damaging media fight about sexual harassment. In this article, I’ll explain the mistakes made by Game Science and how fixing the echo chamber is key to avoiding these kinds of problems.
While reading this article, please pay attention to how this isn’t about who is right and who is wrong, instead it’s about how a company like this can be successful.
Blindly blundering into foreign social context
The scandal was so explosive in part because it entered a social context with a torrid history. Let’s recount the story so far. According to Wikipedia: “On 20 November 2023, IGN released an article that detailed alleged sexism related to the company. Its co-founders were documented to have made comments on Chinese social media that the article’s authors, Rebekah Valentine and Khee Hoon Chan, called sexism. In addition, the company was said to have published several recruitment posters in 2015 that featured suggestive images.” Many women in China also pushed back hard against the company and corroborated these sentiments.
China hasn’t had a scandal like this before, but in the English-speaking world there is a previous incident with GamerGate and later, the Blizzard sexual harassment scandal centering around Alex Afrasiabi, resulting in a $50 million penalty. Thus, by 2023 or so, the women’s rights activists have won in the Western world in a big way. Blizzard gave free rein to his antics because beneath the veneer, he is also insanely smart and passionate. But companies can’t really do that anymore.
Failure to consider consumer country norms
The management at Game Science failed to appreciate the value of organizational diversity, in contrast to companies like TikTok and Shein. Their decision-makers seem to have all been Chinese men, who were then making decisions about how their organization should behave cross-culturally. This is pure amateurism.
To put it another way, imagine the company headquarters has electrical problems, but instead of hiring an electrician to fix it, they decide to DIY it and cause a huge electrical fire that burns everything down. Pretty amateurish, right? But that is what the company did by going DIY with its international engagement rather than hiring actual experts.
Game Science largely responded to the English media’s sexism allegations by using the same cultural methods that the Chinese state media uses when responding to criticism generally. They refused the engage with the media on these topics, instead stonewalling, saying no comment. Second, they discouraged content producers from even discussing the topic at all. That is a huge mistake for two reasons.
First is found in the Society of Human Resources Management book on Employment Law. A US authority, SHRM says that whenever your company is implicated in sexual harassment or hostile workplace violation allegations, that you need to immediately commence a full internal investigation and to correct the issue. They should have credible statements from attorneys ready that show their commitment to civil rights if they want to sell products in those countries. SHRM has lots of best practices for handling these situations, none of which Game Science seems to have known about.
Instead, they responded to the English-speaking community in a way distinct to the 1979-2022 era of Chinese culture, after the Revolution but before the women’s rights law.
Politicization: failure to engage on the facts
As many people pointed out, the original IGN report on Wukong was done by a woman Chinese journalist who did her own translations to establish the truth of her report. The translations were incorrect and misleading. But Game Science never did anything like hire an ATA Certified translator to prepare an independent report on the translations to see if they are misleading as to sexism allegations. If they did, they could go after IGN for false reporting. Instead, the company seems to have engaged through politics, by using propaganda to rally “anti-woke” commentators against them. The “incel” community seems to have been heavily involved.
But Game Science is not a political party who needs 30% of people to vote for them to win an election. They’re a business that needs 100% of consumers onboard. Incels are not a group that should be representing any kind of mainstream company. A possible reason for making a political response and not a business one, is relying too heavily on China’s politicians for advice and support.
Don’t rely on government involvement
The New York Times highlighted in a report how the game had extensive government involvement with its production, release, and promotion. But a political response is usually not an appropriate business response. The New York Times reported Game Science acting a lot like a department of the Chinese government, and began recommending censorship outside China’s borders. Using economic clout to dictate what video makers in the USA can or can’t say crosses a huge red line usually called “transnational repression” and could constitute a corporate crime.
Specifically, it could fall under a US law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and be charged as proxy punishment. Remember TikTok was facing a total ban in the United States because its perception as a foreign agent, something the company tried to fight. If the media can establish your company is acting at the behest of a government without disclosing (registering) it, then not only does that churn out massive media reports, but the local governments will try to ban you.
Most readers in China will be focusing on whether the sexism reports are proven in the “Western Media” that anything bad happened. That’s an echo chamber response when you need to get out of the echo chamber. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or if it’s slander. The mere perception of a FARA issue is devastating for a private company’s ability to do business.
The government’s main interest in Wukong was actually boosting China’s brand and to also make money, neither of which are accomplished by getting into a big media scandal and losing millions of dollars in sales to alienated women. Getting propaganda department bureaucrats is totally unnecessary, and looks more like penny-pinching behavior from executives unwilling to spend money on a proper New York public relations firm.
The Chinese government’s policy of promoting high quality development in EVs, solar, drones, and software is a good goal. Let’s talk about how to keep them from messing up again.
What should game science do?
Last year, I wrote an article that China’s international ambitions are failing due to translator groupthink, and that can explain the awkward subtitle translations. It also applies to the international business aspects. Game Science in short needs to solve its Groupthink problem, where all of its decisions are dominated by a PRC-based Chinese Male’s cultural knowledge and decision-making. They may have an idea that the “Chinese man needs to be able to do everything himself” but this is wrong, an organization needs a wide variety of people and skill sets. Ubisoft won’t launch in China without Chinese collaborators, so why is Game Science insisting on ethnic purity for its international launch?
If you read my previous article, I already covered a huge problem that occurred in Game Science’s development process, which is “language polishing.” Behind language polishing is another deadly sin of globalization management, which is Groupthink, which I’ve also written an entire article about. In the Game Science context, the Groupthink problem seems to have occurred because they created an echo chamber inhabited only by Chinese men.
This is apparent in the language polishing workflow. Here, we can see people with no professional credentials, but a rape/drugs criminal record credited alongside non-native translators. The goal of management in these interactions is to try to get the American/British employee to accept the false conclusions and ideas the Chinese group has about foreign culture. They will threaten insubordination firings if there’s resistance.
But by forcing the English-speaker to uncritically accept Chinglish and false ideas about American/British culture, they ensure the organization is acting on the basis of false stereotypes. Their motivation is usually to claim “white privilege” by proving “anything you can do I can do better” (see the song about being as good as white men). The team gets blinded to facts like the international media will hit them hard over sexual harassment and censorship, and loses access to potentially successful strategies.
Game Science can do better. Instead of attempting to discredit and silence dissent that disagrees with your echo chamber opinion, hire talented international collaborators for every function and at every level. Not apparent drug addicts who won’t speak their minds. Until the company’s focus shifts from ensuring the absolute authority of a Chinese team’s groupthink over foreign opinion, and instead to telling China’s stories to international acclaim, they’re going to keep falling flat.
Conclusion
In this article, we looked at how Black Myth: Wukong’s sexual harassment scandal was a result of an echo chamber in its localization process, same as happened with its awkward dialog. Fortunately, Game Science can turn the situation around by involving the right collaborators, embracing diversity, and international human resources best practices.
* I still haven’t heard back from Game Science about a background check that’d disprove it, but will update this content as soon as I hear from you!
