The tenor of conversations around mobile and gacha games has shifted over the years. Though they were first met with derision for the widespread perception that they were cheap and inferior knockoff games, not to mention predatory due to their various mechanics and features often being closely tied to microtransactions, more people than ever are now playing mobile games, and they are a huge source of the industry’s capital. At the moment, some of the most played games are mobile and gacha titles, and there’s likely no greater example of this than Genshin Impact, a gacha roleplaying game developed by Chinese developer Mihoyo. Unsurprisingly, the game’s status as a global phenomenon is paying off for its developer which has been valued at $23 billion in a new report, a figure which would also make it the most valuable private gaming-focused company in the world.
That is the latest valuation of the company per the sixth annual Global Unicorn Index by the Hurun Research Institute, which ranks private companies and startups founded after the year 2000 and beginning at $1 billion. As reported by Game World Observer, between the institute’s last ranking and this year’s, Mihoyo shot up 91 positions. Not only is it the biggest privately owned game company on the ranking, it is the 12th highest-valued company on the entirety of the list.
The next-biggest privately owned game company is Niantic, the developers best known for Pokemon Go, which is several positions below Mihoyo at 67th. To give you an idea of the world of difference between them, Niantic was valued at $9 billion.
When Genshin Impact first debuted, some audiences immediately wrote it off as the developer Mihoyo riding the coattails of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but the title attracted an audience that has only grown by magnitudes since. Mihoyo, which also released the turn-based gacha RPG Honkai: Star Rail a few years ago, has since exploded, not only in popularity but in sheer wealth thanks to cash cows like these titles.
At this rate, Mihoyo’s set to shoot up another spot or two by this same time next year. Though the company already has two bonafide hits under its belt—and neither shows signs of stopping as they are continually updated with new content—it hasn’t pumped the brakes on developing other games. Its latest title, Zenless Zone Zero, is another stylish action-RPG that has been in and out of beta for some time now and on track to release on PC and PS5 in the very near future.