When it comes to the revenue of domestic mobile games, “Genshin Impact” undoubtedly stands out as a shining名片. According to market estimates, the game achieved over 36 billion RMB in revenue in its first year of release, making it a standout player in the domestic mobile game market.
As another year has passed, how is “Genshin Impact” performing? Can it maintain its first-year level of performance?
Estimated Annual Revenue: 30.4 billion RMB, Second Year’s Hotness Unfading
According to data from Sevenmash and GenshinLab, the total revenue of “Genshin Impact” on the iOS platform in its second year is approximately 1.1 billion RMB. If we account for an average 1.4 times higher revenue on the Android platform and include PC and console revenues, the total revenue in the second year is estimated to be around 3 billion RMB. Given that “Genshin Impact” has not gone public and its financial reports are not publicly available, accurately determining its total revenue is challenging. According to a data from Bilibili user “Observation of Domestic Anime Games,” the total revenue of “Genshin Impact” in the second year is estimated to be around 30.4 billion RMB, which is approximately 4.2 billion USD. This figure is also consistent with the global market share of approximately 30% that “Genshin Impact” holds in China.
Due to the significant estimation errors, the revenue of the second year is expected to be similar to the first year, which can also be seen in the game’s popularity.
Google Trends shows that “Genshin Impact” had an average search index of 47.25 in its first year globally, rising to 67.13 in the second year, indicating a steady increase in popularity over the years.
Furthermore, according to the data from Data.ai, in 2022, miHoYo not only ranked second globally in terms of total revenue but also topped the list for the highest revenue growth overseas. This clearly demonstrates that “Genshin Impact” has become miHoYo’s absolute money-making powerhouse.
Role Revenue Revealed: Shigeru Leads with Turtles, Watching Fish Comes in Second
The game’s consistent revenue can be attributed to the allure of its characters. After all, “paying for love” is the motivation for in-game purchases. However, which character is the most popular among players?
According to GenshinLab’s statistics, in the two years since the game’s release, Shishigashira Linhua has achieved a revenue of 36 million USD (based solely on data from the iOS platform in China), setting a new record for a single character pool. Even popular characters like Zhongli and Carol lag behind by a considerable margin.
When it comes to total revenue, it’s Goddess Reine who takes the lead. Given that Goddess Reine’s rework pool and Xinhai’s pool were released simultaneously, the estimated total revenue for Goddess Reine’s pool exceeds 60 million USD (based solely on data from the iOS platform in China), solidifying its position as the character with the highest revenue.
Despite calling it “revenue,” it turns out that the weakest link is actually a water element character. According to the previous algorithm, Xinhai’s rework pool revenue is estimated at 58 million USD, although this method has some room for error, it likely falls within that range. Then there’s Gongshi’s second rework pool, which only achieved a revenue of 77 million USD. This seems insufficient to justify three reworks?
Continuous Investment and Spending: How Does “Genshin Impact” Spend Its Money?
Following the usual practice of domestic game companies, once a game becomes profitable, they tend to quickly empty the player’s pockets and invest in developing the next game or simply leave. However, miHoYo has chosen a different path. Instead of spending the money, they continue to invest in development and various events, as if making money is not related to them.
To be specific, the development team of “Genshin Impact” initially consisted of 400 people, with an investment of about 100 million USD. According to rumors, the current development team of “Genshin Impact” has already grown to over