Recently, the Genshin Impact project team under miHoYo announced that it will work with the well-known animation production company ufotable to produce the animated version of Genshin Impact, which means that Genshin Impact will have an animated version on the occasion of its nearly two-year launch. ufotable has produced classic works such as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. This time, the Genshin Impact animation project will maintain its consistent insistence on the high-quality content of the Genshin Impact game and invest in the production of the project in full swing. In the special preview of the new version, Genshin Impact released the concept video of this animation project. On Bilibili, the video has been played more than 4 million times.
Animation production has a long production cycle and high investment. It has always been considered a behavior of burning money and not having a high rate of return. There are only a handful of successful game-to-animation works. The relevant person in charge of Genshin Impact said that MiHoYo’s animation of Genshin Impact this time is not the primary goal of profitability, but it does not mean that this animation must not be profitable. In the end, it still depends on the scale of investment and business strategy.
At the end of 2021, MiHoYo’s music director Cai Jinhan said that MiHoYo has never liked to talk about cost-effectiveness. People always ask me what MiHoYo’s budget is, etc. We can’t tell you because we are always adding budgets. Sensor Tower’s latest report shows that the revenue of “Genshin Impact” on Google Play and App Store has exceeded 3 billion US dollars. After the global release, “Genshin Impact” took 171 days to create the first $1 billion in revenue on mobile devices, not including expenditures through third-party Android stores. The next two billion US dollars took 195 days and 185 days respectively, which means that “Genshin Impact” has an average revenue of $1 billion every six months, making it one of the most successful mobile games in history.
Can the revenue of “Genshin Impact” support the huge investment in future animation production and launch? Take “League of Legends: Battle of Two Cities”, the most successful game-to-comic animation in the past year, as an example. From the establishment of the project in 2015 to the launch in 2021, Riot Games has produced it for six years, and the investment in manpower, material resources and financial resources in the middle is huge. Foreign media have reported that Riot Games spent as much as $14.1 million on advertising in October 2021, mainly to promote the animation “The Battle of Two Cities”. This is just its publicity and promotion costs, excluding production costs.
However, this animated series is a successful attempt for Riot Games. In the month of its premiere, “The Battle of Two Cities” achieved Netflix’s first place in the world, and has been in the top ten of the list in 52 countries and regions around the world for three consecutive weeks. The Rotten Tomatoes index has reached a rare 100% positive rating. After being broadcast in China, the animation derivative content has also been on the Weibo hot search list many times, and has been praised by players as “the pinnacle of game-to-comic adaptations”, and has also allowed more people outside the circle to know and understand “League of Legends”.
Can the income of “Genshin Impact” support the huge investment in future animation production and launch? Compared with action games, RPG (role-playing) games such as “Genshin Impact” have stronger storytelling, more foundation for IP content, and room for adaptation. This time, the “Genshin Impact” animation was not produced by miHoYo itself, but in collaboration with ufotable. Mihoyo is a game company. Although games and animations have some overlap, they are essentially two production lines. Not only Mihoyo, but most domestic game animations are produced by professional animation companies. Mihoyo mainly values ??the production capabilities of ufotable. Ufotable is a well-known game-to-comic company known for its excellent production quality. Its animated film “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” was released in 2020 and grossed over $500 million worldwide, ranking first in the annual box office. In addition to “Demon Slayer”, Ufotable’s representative works include “Fate/Zero”, “Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works”, “Tales of Passion The X”, etc.
Everything is for IP. The “Genshin Impact” animation is more to enrich the connotation and influence of the IP. As long as the IP has a stronger vitality, there are still many ways to make money. Since its launch on September 28, 2020, strictly speaking, the “Genshin Impact” IP has been less than two years, but it has become the most successful two-dimensional mobile game in history, and the IP influence is not small. In China, the number of fans of “Original God” on Weibo has exceeded 6 million, and the number of fans on Bilibili has exceeded 13 million. Overseas, the number of fans of “Original God” on YouTube has also exceeded 5 million, and the maximum number of video views has reached