Communiqué 44: What a popular Chinese video game can teach us about Africa’s creative economy

Within five years, Genshin Impact, a video game with a truly global outlook, has brought in over $5 billion in revenue. What can African creators learn from it?

A image depicting Genshin Impact's gameplay.

1. The global phenomenon

On September 28, 2020, amid the global upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Chinese video game developer and publisher MiHoYo released a title that would take the internet by storm. The anime-style open-world, cross-platform action game features elemental magic and character-switching mechanics. Despite its complex description, Genshin Impact — the game — launched to widespread critical acclaim.

Genshin Impact debuted as a free-to-play title, monetized through Gacha game mechanics (which essentially involves inviting users to spend in-game currency for a random in-game item). Its success was fueled by captivating storytelling, stunning anime-inspired art, intricate world and character design, and the surge in digital consumption brought on by worldwide lockdowns.

By 2021, the game had become one of the highest-grossing mobile titles, and by 2022, it had generated nearly $3.8 billion in revenue. As of 2024, estimates suggest that in China alone, Genshin Impact has surpassed $5 billion in lifetime gross revenue on iOS and Android—figures that exclude revenue from other platforms such as Windows and PlayStation. Considering the game’s reported production cost of around $100 million, this represents an extraordinary 50x revenue multiple on mobile platforms alone. For context, Avatar, the 2009 sci-fi epic by James Cameron, is the highest-grossing movie of all time with $2.9 billion. It cost about $300 million to produce. In comparison, Standard Bank, one of Africa’s largest, made $2.3 billion in headline earnings in 2023. Talk about returns.