Chinese studio miHoYo released Genshin Impact on September 28, 2020. It cost the company $100 million to develop the product. Given the popularity of Genshin Impact and the time the product has been on the market, the game is approaching the $500 million mark.

According to official figures, it costs miHoYo up to $200 million annually to support the game. That figure was not taken out of thin air. Kai Haoyu first reported it for China 16p in February 2021.

miHoYo spent $100 million to develop Genshin Impact. But the first year after its release, the company spent another $200 million on the game. That said, development costs for miHoYo have risen over the past three years.

Kai Haoyu, president of miHoYo

The company has increased its team size. In 2014, miHoYo employed 1,200 people, and 700 of its 2,400 employees worked on the game last year. But it’s an open question whether Kai Haoyu included marketing expenses in the amount he voiced in the interview. This figure sometimes exceeds even the cost of development.

Today, the estimated cost of Genshin Impact is second only to Star Citizen and Cyberpunk 2077. But companies don’t publicly display statistics on games’ marketing costs. Therefore, approaching the $500 million mark for the game remains a tentative assumption.

Side note: Mobile games bring in more profits than consoles and PC combined.

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