Liu Wei, founder of Mihayou： Games are a common language across cultures and regions.
Source: CBN
In Liu Wei’s view, culture is the core and soul of a boutique game, and the excellent traditional culture with rich inside information is an inexhaustible source of innovation.
On November 24th, Shanghai Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Association and Shanghai First Financial Media Co., Ltd. released the winners’ lists of the 4th Top Ten Shanghai Cultural Enterprises, Top Ten Shanghai Cultural Enterprises, Top Ten Innovative People and Top Ten Shanghai Cultural Brands, and held the "Awards Ceremony and Exchange Meeting of the 4th Top Ten Shanghai Cultural Enterprises and Ten People" at the same time.
At the event site, the First Financial Reporter met Liu Wei, the founder of Mihayou. Shanghai Mihayou Shadow Iron Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mihayou, was rated as one of the top ten cultural enterprises in Shanghai, its self-developed game Genshin Impact was rated as one of the top ten cultural brands in Shanghai, and Liu Wei himself was also rated as one of the top ten cultural enterprises in Shanghai, which can be said to be full of food.
Looking back on these years’ experience, Liu Wei was filled with emotion. Ten years ago, he just graduated from school and founded Mihayou Studio with his classmates Cai Haoyu and Luo Yuhao. At that time, the first bucket of money to help them start a business was an interest-free loan of 100,000 yuan from the "Young Eagle Project" of the College Student Entrepreneurship Foundation of Shanghai Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center. Today, Mihayou has developed into a company with a global market of over 4,000 people.
Genshin Impact, an open-world adventure game launched by Mihayou in September 2020, has landed in more than 200 countries and regions, and will be updated to 15 languages in the upcoming version 3.3. Genshin Impact won the "Game Oscar" TheGameAwards(TGA) Best Mobile Game, Game Developer’s Choice Award (GDC), App Store Game of the Year, Google Play Game of the Year and other honors. According to the data analysis organization Sensor Tower, in September 2022, China mobile game publishers ranked in the global App Store and Google Play revenue, while Tencent, Netease and Mihayou ranked in the top three.
At the awarding ceremony, Liu Wei spoke and shared how Genshin Impact, as a game created by the China team, made players all over the world feel the charm of Chinese traditional culture and spread their inner Chinese thinking with the help of multinational cultural elements.
"In the virtual world shaped by games, it is easier for people to abandon their prejudices and form a common language," Liu Wei said. "As a communication medium, games not only cross the boundary between virtual and reality, but also cross the boundary between culture and region."
In Liu Wei’s view, culture is the core and soul of a boutique game, and the excellent traditional culture with rich heritage is an inexhaustible source of innovation. "If we can organically combine our traditional culture, convey the truth, goodness and beauty in our Chinese culture in the game, and let everyone know the history of China’s human geography and even the philosophical and cultural content through the game, our game will become more vivid, more vital and more unique."
First Finance:The slogan of Miha Tour is "Technology House to Save the World". What is your initial intention for the game?
Liu Wei:The initial intention of Mihayou was to hope that one day, the IP we created could leave a memory in the hearts of a generation. "Technology House Saving the World" is the company’s mission since its establishment. We still believe that technological changes can drive the development of the entire entertainment experience. In the future, we will continue to pursue technological breakthroughs, enhance content productivity and bring unique experiences to players.
First Finance:Mihayou has successively released games such as "Collapse" and "Genshin Impact". Can you talk about why you chose to dig these games deeply?
Liu Wei:Based on the long-term and high-quality operation of original IP, we have been pioneering for more than ten years. We have always adhered to independent research and development and independent distribution, taking the route of "original high-quality products+long-term operation", and the products are characterized by "less but better".
Around 2011, the era of smart phones is about to rise. We started to develop our first product, FlyMe2theMoon, in the dormitory. In 2012, we formally established the company, and then made the "collapse" series.
From 2011 to 2013, it was relatively difficult. At that time, many people wanted us to transform into other categories, such as playing cards and playing the Three Kingdoms game. At that time, those were easier to make money, but we persisted. At that time, we didn’t know that the second element could develop to such a great extent today, basically relying on this very simple and pure love.
Now it seems that we are very lucky. In 2014, the launch of "Collapse Academy 2" met the outbreak of the domestic secondary market and became the biggest beneficiary of that era. Then we launched Crash 3 in 2016 based on the IP of Crash.
After "Crash 3" became a hit, our team has been thinking about what to do with the next product. We have returned to our research and development concepts: something new, something exciting, something out of imagination. Our team has been thinking about what kind of products will make us feel exciting and out of imagination.
During that time, we played a lot of open-world games on our consoles, and we wanted to bring them to our mobile phones. I want to play and do, so I have the idea of being Genshin Impact.
First Finance:How does Mihayou make the game, music, animation and surroundings IP-based?
Liu Wei:Mihayou takes IP operation as the core, and we have our own comics, music, novels, peripheral derivatives and game teams around the original IP. The purpose of creating these contents is to make our original IP more vivid, three-dimensional and vivid. This practice also makes users start to like and pay attention to our IP growth. We hope that Mihayou’s original IP will continue to be created for 10 or 20 years and become a memory product that can affect a generation.
First Finance:You emphasized that Genshin Impact is a game with China cultural connotation created by the China team. What do you think of the significance of China elements to a game?
Liu Wei:Chinese culture is the core and soul of a high-quality game, and its rich and excellent traditional culture is an inexhaustible source of innovation. Since its launch, Genshin Impact has maintained good results in the global market. The main reason is that we constantly innovate the content in our products with culture as the source and display them with high quality.