The case of miHoYo: how the creators of Genshin Impact earned hundreds of millions on the desire to “pay for love”

the studio was founded in 2012 by three programmers with a capital of $ 14 thousand.

• Six years later, the company reported revenue of $298 million, and now it employs 1,500 people;from the very beginning, miHoYo chose otaku as the target audience — a Japanese term for a person who is interested in something (it is often used in relation to fans of anime culture);
• all the company’s projects somehow contain a large number of female characters.
• One of the slogans of the studio sounds like this: “Otaku will save the world”;however, sometimes it played against miHoYo — their first big hit Guns Girl was initially blocked in the App Store due to “violence and controversial content”, and in the Honkai Impact 3rd game there was an opportunity to interact with openly dressed heroines by clicking on their bodies (later the function was removed).
• How did the company’s formula turn out to be successful?

the beginning of the activity of miHoYo coincided with the heyday of otaku culture in China — an increasing percentage of the male audience became interested in anime, comics and video games;

• To promote its games, miHoYo began collaborating with the Bilibili website.
• This is the largest Chinese resource in this segment, which is visited by millions of fans of anime and geek culture;“Bilibili generated more than 50% of our revenue on Android devices,” admits co-founder Cai Haoyu, who calls himself an otaku.
• Gacha Mechanics and the success of Genshin Impact

the developers first thought about introducing gacha (the ability to get a certain item or character for in-game or real currency) into their games after they studied the successful projects of competitors;

• “Mainstream games made money on hate.
• All revenue was based on a competition between players. Gamers wanted to be stronger than their rivals and earn the highest rank on the server,” recalls Liu Wei, co—founder of miHoYo;in contrast, the company wanted to make players “pay for love”, focusing not on the competitive element, but on the desire of the target audience to get beautiful female characters;
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  co-founder of miHoYo

  • The company also used this approach in Genshin Impact — the game is distributed for free, however, in-game currency must be used to open new characters. In just 12 days, the project earned $100 million, fully covering the development budget.***

  Now miHoYo plans to develop its brand beyond video games.

  A few years ago, the company announced the creation of anime and comics by Honkai Impact 3rd, and in the future, developers hope that these areas will generate more than half of all revenue.

  Also on the topic:

  • In four days, Genshin Impact downloads on mobile devices reached 17 millionHow Among Us managed to become a hit on Steam after two years of unsuccessful stay in the store
  • Chinese developers announced a boycott of Huawei and Xiaomi stores due to high commission
  • Is there any news?

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