Per editor: Li Zedong
On March 10, the latest data from the Sensor Tower store intelligence platform showed that thanks to the holding of the Walnut and Yelan character events in early February and the update of version 3.5 in late February, Mihayou's "Genshin" once again ushered in growth in overseas revenue that month, winning the top spot in the overseas mobile game revenue list and returning to the top of the revenue growth list.
In addition, with the launch of new characters, plots and events, Mihayou's "Honkai 3" overseas revenue increased by 62% month-on-month, returning to 14th place in the revenue list and ranking 3rd on the growth list.
It is understood that as a popular character in "Genshin", Hu Tao once recreated the card pool on November 3, 2021, which once crashed the Mihayou server. It has been 451 days since the last fork. Another character, Yelan, was called "Queen of the Night" by players because of her explosive intensity.
Image source: "Genshin" preview live broadcast screenshot
Just last month, the joint activity of "Genshin" and Pizza Hut caused the Pizza Hut APP to collapse, and this topic appeared on the hot search, confirming the ability of Mihayou's "Genshin" IP to attract money. Previously, on January 4 this year, the topic #Genshin's total income exceeded $4 billion# on Weibo hot search.
Image source: Pizza Hut Weibo screenshot
According to Red Star News, according to data from mobile application data analysis platform Sensor Tower, since its launch in September 2020, Genshin mobile has achieved revenue of more than US$4 billion (about 27.68 billion yuan). Among them, in the first 11 months of 2022, the mobile revenue of "Genshin" was about 1.64 billion US dollars (about 11.32 billion yuan). And this is only the mobile revenue of "Genshin", excluding PC, console, etc.
Image source: Screenshot of Genshin official website
It is worth mentioning that Mihayou, the producer of "Genshin", lined up for an IPO as early as 2017, but it eventually voluntarily withdrew its listing application materials.
China Consumer News: Mihayou recharge is easy and difficult to refund
According to a report by China Consumer Daily on March 1, recently, the reporter received a number of consumer complaints, reflecting that children stealing their parents' mobile phones to recharge and spend on games under Shanghai Mihayou Yingtie Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Mihayou), ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
When these consumers asked Mihayou for a refund, they encountered problems such as "customer service prevarication", "difficulty in adducing evidence", and "refund refusal".
Part of the top-up record provided by Mr. Zeng.
At the end of January this year, Mr. Zeng suddenly received a notification from the bank that his credit card bill was overdue. Mr. Zeng thought about it carefully, this is a credit card that has been idle for many years, and it has never been consumed, how can the bill be overdue? Mr. Zeng went to the bank to print the consumption details, and the bill showed that he recharged 3,300 yuan and 5,732 yuan to Shanghai Mihayou Yingtie Technology Co., Ltd. in December last year and 5,732 yuan in January this year, for a total of 9,032 yuan.
Mr. Zeng was puzzled, and later remembered that a 12-year-old had taken his mobile phone for studying. After some questioning, the child admitted that in order to circumvent the anti-addiction system's restrictions on game time, he used his parents' ID card to register to play Mihayou's "Genshin" game, and purchased various "spars" in the game through Mr. Zeng's mobile phone payment.
Because he was a minor recharging the game, Mr. Zeng submitted a refund application to Mihayou's customer service, and provided dozens of materials such as the real-name mobile phone number of the child logging in to the game account, the real-name bank card number of the person who paid the payment, the proof of payment bill, the student certificate, and the online class certificate. Mihayou judged that the identity information at the time of registering the game was not his next of kin, and closed the appeal channel.
"At about 22:55 on January 17, 6 times of 648 yuan, 6 times of 198 yuan, and 2 times of 328 yuan were recharged in just a few minutes, which is obviously a recharge behavior carried out by children who have no independent civil capacity and have no concept of money." Mr. Zeng told reporters, "Mihayou did not strictly control the game registration, and the recharge was unimpeded, and did not take measures such as identity verification and face recognition for real-name verification, but when parents asked for refunds, they shirked for various reasons." ”
What measures does Mihayou have in game registration, recharge and other links to prevent minors from becoming addicted? What principles are used to determine the problem of recharging minors? In response to these problems, the relevant personnel of Mihayou replied to the reporter: "Regarding the situation you mentioned, we are already in the process of verification and processing, and we will synchronize the processing results with you." But as of press time, the reporter did not receive a reply from Mihayou.
The game project personally led by Mihayou CEO Cai Haoyu was disbanded
On November 24, 2022, the news came out that Mihayou's Project SH project announced the suspension of the project.
It is reported that Project SH is an open-world project personally led by Cai Haoyu, the founder of Mihayou and producer of "Genshin", using the UE5 engine, and is known as "one of the most ambitious and largest research products of Mihayou at present".
Image source: Screenshot of the article posted by the game grape B station
According to Game Grape, Project SH released an internal letter today. The following is the full text of the internal letter:
"Announcement: Notes on the dissolution of the SH project
Doing projects has always had fewer successes and more failures, and everyone has a feeling that something is wrong while walking. Since this road cannot go down, decisively point and bury it. No more wasting time writing high-sounding emails.
Fail fast,learn fast。 Starting this week, BP will communicate with you about follow-up. Please be patient, we will try our best to arrange your internal circulation, but there is really no suitable opportunity, and the company will arrange corresponding severance compensation. ”
As a star company in the game industry, Mihayou has created several phenomenal games in the past few years. From the "Honkai" series to "Genshin", the high level of game quality has made Mihayou's research projects one of the key dynamics in the game industry.
Image source: Screenshot of the promotional video on the official website of "Genshin"
Previously, it was said that the game project will be exposed to the outside world as early as the second half of 2023 or 2024, becoming a product of Mihayou's "challenge ceiling".
However, the dissolution of Project SH may also be within Mihayou's tolerance. In addition to the existing successful products, Mihayou currently has two games that have been exposed, "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" and "Zone Zero".
Daily economic news comprehensive Red Star News, Sensor Tower data, "China Consumer News", public information
Daily economic news