Open-world adventure game Genshin Impact has made its developer miHoYo around $US393 ($533) million in revenue since launching in late September, according to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower. The wild part? That number only accounts for the game’s mobile income.
Genshin Impact found near-instant worldwide success when it arrived on PlayStation 4, PC, iOS, and Android on September 28. The game’s free-to-play price point and Breath of the Wild-style exploration made for an enticing combination, while the gacha system — a type of virtual lottery prevalent in mobile gaming — kept players coming back in the hopes of unlocking their favourite characters.
While Sensor Tower wasn’t able to provide figures for the non-mobile versions of Genshin Impact, the firm’s estimations show that the game has made a combined average of over $US6 ($8) million a day on iOS and Android since its release. This pushed Genshin Impact above both PUBG Mobile and Pokémon Go in Sensor Tower’s rankings of top-grossing mobile games.
Genshin Impact’s popularity hasn’t shielded it from controversy, however. Players pointed out in October that it might have lifted a piece of music from the Final Fantasy series. Shortly after, the game was also found to be censoring words like “Taiwan,” “Hong Kong,” and “Tibet,” possibly to appease China’s strict regulations on anything that threatens its “national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity.”
It should also be pointed out that much of the money made by these mobile games is taken in from hardcore players known as “whales,” for whom the constant thrill of the gacha lottery can be addictive. The relationship between games like Genshin Impact and its players can often be parasitic, and if Genshin Impact players behave like players of other microtransaction-driven games, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of that staggering $US393 ($533) million was culled from a tiny fraction of its overall player base.
Genshin Impact’s enjoyed several content updates since its release in September, and there are also plans to release the game on PlayStation 5 and Switch. We can probably look forward to word of the game racking up big money being a regular thing for the foreseeable future.
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