After nearly two years of launch, the successful title of miHoYo is about to become the game with the highest development cost ever.
Genshin Impact is the most ambitious game developed by miHoYo and these ambitions come with huge financial costs in the long run. During initial development, Genshin Impact had a budget of $100 million prior to its release on September 28, 2020. Two years after its launch, Genshin Impact is slowly becoming the most expensive game ever made. . Genshin Impact is an open-world role-playing game inspired by Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. After an impressive debut, the game quickly gained popularity on social media and streaming platforms like Twitch. MiHoYo always provides insights on new content, updates and social events for the Genshin Impact player community. Thanks to that, the game became one of the hottest gacha titles on mobile, console and PC.
In a few weeks, Genshin Impact’s total production cost will hit $500 million, making it the “most expensive” game on its two-year anniversary. Reddit user u/KeiraFaith compiled statistics based on official miHoYo information, including the game’s initial budget of $100 million, followed by $400 million in annual costs. In 2021, miHoYo announced that the company’s budget for Genshin Impact has increased from $100 million to $200 million annually. Without the change, Genshin Impact will cost around $500 million by September 2022. Genshin Impact’s development costs involve creating new content in major updates, such as kernels. characters, in-game events, regions, maps as diverse as Liyue and Inazuma, and the main storyline. Maintaining the servers and expanding the studio also counts towards production costs. However, Genshin Impact’s total revenue has reached more than 3 billion USD per year, meaning that development costs have been refunded many times after deducting taxes.
