Google Play named miHoYo's recently released open-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game Genshin Impact its 2020 Best Game of the year for "delivering a compelling, accessible, genre-defining experience."
Bearing a strong aesthetic resemblance to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in its development, Genshin Impact, in the first two months after its Sept. 28 global launch, has brought in an estimated $393 million, according to a report by mobile analytics company Sensor Tower.
Analysts estimated the game has earned more than $6 million each day. This puts Genshin Impact in second place behind the world's biggest mobile game, Tencent's Honor Of Kings, in terms of global revenue.
A Rare Success
Available on multiple platforms - iOS, Android, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, the free-to-play action-RPG game has cross-play compatibility between systems.
Spurred on by content-hungry gamers during the pandemic, this fantasy game has proved popular. Users experience adventures exploring a lush fantasy world with various adventurous characters.
iOS appeared to be the most popular platform. It brought in an estimated $226 million over the past two months, accounting for 57.5% of the total revenue.
China, with a large number of Android users, is the top market in terms of players' spending, with $120 million during the period, accounting for 30.5% of its global revenue, according to Sensor Tower's report. It excluded counts from China's third-party Android stores.
Japan and the U.S. account for 25% and 18.8% respectively in market share. South Korea places the fourth.
Sensor Tower said "Genshin Impact is a standout in that it has performed so well internationally, and its achievement is even rarer among Chinese-made mobile titles."
A Quick Copy Cat?
Bearing such marked similarities to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nintendo's 2017 smash-hit, Genshin Impact has been accused of being a clone, from art style and mechanics to game play and even music cues.
When miHoYo announced its release schedule for Genshin Impact at the 2019 China Joy gaming expo, Zelda and Nintendo fans staged a protest. Many dressed in cosplay from Breath of the Wild and made obscene gestures toward the signage for Genshin Impact. One gamer even smashed a PlayStation 4 as part of the protest.
The incident raised concerns over how to differentiate plagiarism from inspiration in the video game field. One year later, Genshin Impact still hasn't shaken those accusations.
"In a post that our team circulated to players last year, we mentioned that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of our inspirations for creating Genshin Impact as an open-world action RPG," said a Genshin Impact developer in an interview with FreeMMOStation during the September launch.
The developer noted that users will discover a different experience, as Genshin Impact features "a fully original story and characters, and the core game play revolves around assembling a party of multiple characters and engaging in a combat system based on interactions between different elements."
Another RPG game, Decay of Logos, was faced with comparisons with Breath of the Wild but didn't have the same level of controversy that Genshin Impact does.
No Free Lunch
Players for Genshin Impact expressed that the storytelling is "less than memorable" and "nothing spectacular" and they played for the compelling exploration and fights in a big, open world filled with quests, puzzles, challenges and bosses.
Developer miHoYo, with experience from hosting other free-to-play mobile titles like Honkai Impact 3rd, gets its customers to willingly open their wallets for in-game currency. While basic game play for free is possible, the game experience is enhanced through spending in-game currency to gain better characters and special items. Players complained that certain characters or items were virtually impossible to obtain even after spending real-world currency.
Besides producing anime, comics and games content, miHoYo claims it also develops its own proprietary rendering technology. The company was founded in 2012 by three Shanghai Jiaotong University graduate students who shared a passion for ACG culture.
The company noted in a 2019 statement that the game had a development and marketing budget of around $100 million. Within the two weeks following its launch, Ginshen Impact raked in more than $100 million globally.
