In 2020, miHoYo’s free-to-play Genshin Impact became a phenomenon of a mobile game. At its time of launch, it had almost 10 million pre-registrations, and overtook Fortnite, the staple of game streaming, in terms of stream viewers on Twitch.
The game expanded the possibility of what a free-to-play mobile game can be qualitatively, and raised expectations that players have of the genre. It has been a year since Genshin Impact was released, and analytics firm Sensor Tower is showing us just how well the game did.
In its first year, the game has generated about US$2 billion in terms of global player spending, making it the third most revenue-generating mobile game ever, behind Tencent’s Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile. This excludes sales figures from China, and the sales on PC and PlayStation, which means the actual total revenue from the game is actually more than US$2 billion.
Genshin Impact continues to be a juggernaut in the free-to-play mobile game market as players spend an average of US$12 million per day whenever a new character is released. No wonder it became the fastest game to cross the US$1 billion revenue milestone, reaching that impressive number in less than six months.
The longevity of the game in the long run remains to be seen, but for now, there is no sign of it slowing down or grinding to a halt any time soon.
Brandon shapeshifts between being a nerd and a geek like Mystique, but with fewer options. He reads an unhealthy amount of comics and manga, while playing a healthy amount of board games and video games.
Trinity Sun
Natalie
