Free-to-play action role-playing game Genshin Impact has topped the list of highest-grossing games in their first year. Even though Genshin Impact is free, developer miHoYo still makes a ton of revenue through the game's gacha mechanics. According to new data, the amount of revenue that Genshin Impact has generated is greater than most fans and observers would have thought.
Since Genshin Impact's release in September 2020, miHoYo's creation has taken over the mobile gaming sphere. Genshin Impact became one of the most-downloaded mobile games in its first year. However, controversies and setbacks have angered the Genshin Impact community leading to a mass exodus of the player base in recent months. Despite the dwindling player count, though, it appears that Genshin Impact's strong start was enough to land them as one of the most successful game launches ever.
As shared on the Gacha Gaming subreddit, user Otaku_User32 showed how Genshin Impact's impressive first-year earning puts them ahead of successful first year launches like Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto V, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. With an estimated revenue somewhere between $2.3 and 3.7 billion, Genshin Impact surpassed Fortnite's first-year revenue by nearly $1 billion. In a separate post, Otaku_User32 gave more information regarding their calculations of this revenue, including the astonishing confirmed $2.1 billion in revenue from the mobile version. While Otaku_User32 acknowledges the high-end estimate of $3.7 billion is not confirmed, they also note that the projection is based on China's enormous mobile gaming market, being around 60% of the game's revenue.
Genshin Impact was reported to have been downloaded 17 million times in early 2021, and reports in July showed an all-time high of 11 million active monthly users. While that number dipped in the past few months to around 8 million, that's still a vast player base that miHoYo has managed to cultivate. The constant updates of new characters, a new region in the recent Genshin Impact 2.0 update released last month, and opportunites for loyal players to claim rewards have largely kept their player base happy. Even amid controversies such as miHoYo going aggressively after leakers and a perceived lack of diversity with the Genshin Impact characters, the game's popularity even among a drop in players is still impressive.
Genshin Impact still has an opportunity for massive growth as the game enters its second year. Although that growth appears to be slowing, the fact that the Genshin Impact devs are taking player feedback into consideration when announcing and tweaking new content and rewards is a promising sign for the game's staying power. Even if the decline of Genshin Impact continues, miHoYo still has an impressive milestone to fall back on.