Hit game ‘Genshin Impact’ helps Chinese studio double its sales

Genshin Impact is set in a fantasy world with dragons and magic, where players unlock anime-style characters and weapons via loot boxes they pay real money for. — MiHoYo

The Chinese developer of Genshin Impact doubled revenue to almost US$800mil (RM3.23bil) last year, riding one of the biggest video game hits of the pandemic era.

Shanghai-based MiHoYo racked up more than 5bil yuan (RM3.12bil) in sales in 2020, thanks to the popularity of the action-adventure title that debuted September, the studio’s co-founder and president Cai Haoyu said in an online speech, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cai told fellow alumni from Shanghai Jiaotong University that MiHoYo increased its headcount by 70% to 2,400 people last year, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.